March 19, 2014

"An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 23 people in Guinea's southeastern forest region since February when the first case was reported, health authorities in the West African nation said on Wednesday."

Guinea: 35 suspected cases, 23 deaths

"Symptoms appear as diarrhoea and vomiting, with a very high fever. Some cases showed relatively heavy bleeding."

Most of the victims had been in contact with the deceased or had handled the bodies

Samples sent to Senegal and France for further tests

Guinea: 49 suspected cases, 29 deaths

French tests inconclusive so far

"However, we are narrowing it down to Ebola and Marburg Hemorrhagic Fever (MHF)," Sakoba Keita, a Guinea health ministry official, said.

"The first case of the outbreak in Guinea was reported on Feb. 9."

"Cases have been recorded in three southeastern towns and in the capital Conakry."

March 22, 2014

"An outbreak of hemorrhagic fever that has killed 29 people in Guinea may have spread across the border into neighboring Sierra Leone, according to a World Health Organisation (WHO) document and a senior Sierra Leone health official."

"The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Guinea has notified WHO of a rapidly evolving outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever in forested areas south eastern Guinea. As of 22 March 2014, a total of 49 cases including 29 deaths (case fatality ratio: 59%) had been reported. The cases have been reported in Guekedou, Macenta, Nzerekore and Kissidougou districts. In addition, three suspect cases including two deaths in Conakry are under investigation. Four health care workers are among the victims. Reports of suspected cases in border areas of Liberia and Sierra Leone are being investigated."

March 24, 2014

West Africa Outbreak *

Guinea 86 cases59 deaths* suspected case and death counts reported by WHO. To view case counts reported by other official and news media sources, visit healthmap.org.

"There has been an outbreak of the deadly disease called Ebola in neighbouring Guinea-Conakry and experts say it’s likely to spread in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Guinea Bissau and Mali, five countries that share borders with Guinea-Conkary."

"Scientists tackling an outbreak of Ebola in Guinea believe they have identified the virus as the Zaire strain, the most lethal of all that 'raises the already high level of concern', according to France's Institut Pasteur."

"Five patients have died in Liberia of suspected Ebola fever, the government said on Monday, as neighbouring Guinea battled an outbreak of the virus which has killed dozens."

“As of this morning six cases have been reported of which five have already died Ä four female adults and one male child. One of the suspected cases, a female child, is under treatment,” Health Minister Walter Gwenigale said in a statement

"A man who recently traveled to West Africa is seriously ill and being kept in isolation in a Canadian hospital with symptoms of a hemorrhagic fever resembling the Ebola virus, Saskatchewan health officials said."

March 25, 2014

West Africa Outbreak *

Guinea 86 cases60 deaths* suspected case and death counts reported by WHO. To view case counts reported by other official and news media sources, visit healthmap.org.

"Karbo said one of the cases concerned a 14-year-old boy who is thought to have died two weeks ago in Guinea and then been taken back to his village on the Sierra Leonean side of the border. The second suspected case, in a patient who has not died, was in the northern border district of Kambia."

"An Irish Aid agency has confirmed that the deadly Ebola virus has spread from Guinea into the neighboring West African state of Liberia. The report released by Plan Ireland confirms two separate cases of Ebola infection in Liberia, fuelling claims that the outbreak is becoming a regional epidemic."

"Travel has been restricted in ‘high risk areas’ of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia alongside the implementation of a host of safety precautions. Those working or living in affected areas have been advised to travel only if on essential business, to regularly wash hands, and to avoid eating bush meat."

"The cases have been reported in Guekedou, Macenta, and Kissidougou districts. As of 25 March 2014, a total of 86 suspected cases including 60 deaths (case fatality ratio: 69.7%) had been reported. Four health care workers are among the victims. Reports of suspected cases in border areas of Liberia and Sierra Leone are being investigated."

"On Tuesday during their separate regular sessions, the issue of the outbreak of the disease was discussed with consensus for collaborative efforts with the Executive Branch of government through the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare in tackling the spread of the disease."

"In the letter, Representative Kaprkar requested plenary to mandate the health committee to work in collaboration with the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to hasten the necessary preventive and remedial measures to protect Liberians against the deadly Ebola disease."

"Guinea said on Wednesday it had stopped an outbreak of deadly Ebola fever from spreading beyond the country's remote southeast, although the number of deaths from suspected infections rose to at least 63."

"'The epidemic is not spreading to other regions,' Guinean Health Minister Remy Lamah told Reuters by telephone from the affected area in Guinea's remote Forest region. 'Medical equipment has been shipped in,' he said. 'MSF is helping us to control the outbreak.'"

"Confirmed health authorities in Liberia say there have been no new suspected deaths from the deadly Ebola virus since the admission early this week of four (2 in Guinea, 1 in Foya and 1 in Zorzor) reported cases."

"'I can confirm to you that there has been no reported case of Ebola on admission in any of Liberia's hospitals. Samples from suspected persons have been provided to MSF in Guinea for preliminary examination. Further confirmation from the preliminary findings will be provided from Lyon, France,'"

"The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare would like to inform the public that the number of suspected viral hemorrhagic fever cases remains at six with four deaths as of March 26, 2014. The two cases and one death reported from Curran Ho spital in Zorzor yesterday did not meet the case definition of viral hemorrhagic fevers. Hence, this has reduced the cumulative number of suspected cases and deaths."

"Four cases of infection by the deadly Ebola virus have been confirmed in Conakry, Guinea's Health Minister Remy Lamah said on Thursday, marking the first confirmed spread of the disease from rural areas to West African state's capital."

"Guinea’s Health Ministry reported five suspected cases of Ebola in the capital, Conakry, as the death toll from the hemorrhagic fever increased to 66. At least 15 suspected cases of the infectious disease were registered yesterday, including those in Conakry, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. A total of 103 suspected cases have now been registered, while there has been one death in the capital, it said."

"Ten new cases of Ebola with seven deaths were reported on Friday in Guinea, bringing the total number of cases to 112 and 70 deaths since the declaration of this deadly epidemic, a source from the health ministry has said."

"Two cases of Ebola were confirmed in Liberia as the death toll from Guinea’s outbreak, called “unprecedented” by an international aid organization, climbed to 80. One of the confirmed cases in Liberia has died, while a second person who died with a suspected Ebola infection tested negative for the virus, the World Health Organization said in a statement. Both confirmed cases in Liberia were exposed to Ebola in Guinea, Gregory Hartl, a WHO spokesman, said on Twitter."

"With eight confirmed cases of Ebola reported in the capital Conakry, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is facing an unprecedented epidemic in terms of the distribution of cases now scattered in several locations in Guinea."

"The death toll from the worst Ebola outbreak in seven years climbed to 83 in Guinea as the aid organization Doctors Without Borders said the disease's geographical spread marks the flare-up as unprecedented."

"Liberia said Thursday, April 3 it was dealing with its first suspected Ebola case thought to be unconnected to the epidemic raging in Guinea and to have originated separately within its borders.If confirmed, the case in the eastern town of Tapeta would mark a worrying development in the fight against Ebola, as cases so far have been attributed to people returning with the infection from neighboring Guinea, where 84 people have died."

"A woman confirmed to have traveled to the Firestone Plantation Camp in Liberia with the deadly Ebola virus has been pronounced dead. Health and Social Welfare Minister Dr. Walter Gwenigale told the weekly Ministry of Information press briefing Thursday that the death now brings to total death in Liberia since the outbreak started to seven."

"Mali says it has detected three suspected victims of Ebola, the deadly disease that has killed 84 people in Guinea. Three suspected cases of haemorrhagic fever have been detected in the country. Samples have been taken and sent abroad for analysis, the country's health minister Ousmane Kone said on Thursday."

"An Air France plane from the Ebola-hit west African country of Guinea was quarantined in Paris for two hours Friday after the crew suspected a passenger may have the deadly disease, the airline said. The flight from the Guinean capital Conakry landed at Paris's Charles De Gaulle airport at 5:28 am (0328 GMT) with 187 passengers and 11 crew members on board."

"An angry crowd attacked a treatment centre in Guinea on Friday where staff from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were working to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, forcing it to shut down, a spokesman for the medical charity said."

"Guinea's government raised the death toll in the Ebola epidemic raging through its southern forests and capital to 95. The health ministry added nine deaths to the toll of 86 given before the weekend, saying that 52 cases had been confirmed in laboratories to be the killer tropical virus.Up to now, the Guinean authorities have registered 151 suspect cases and 95 deaths, the ministry's chief disease prevention officer Sakoba Keita told AFP, without specifying the locations of the new deaths."

"Guinea: A cumulative total of 151 clinically compatible cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) including 95 deaths had officially been reported from Guinea . 65 samples were tested of which 34 are tested positive for Ebola. The date of onset of the most recent laboratory confirmed case is 3 April. 14 of the cases including 8 deaths are health workers of which 11 are laboratory confirmed cases. Liberia 21 clinical cases of EVD, including 10 deaths, have been reported from Liberia. All 5 of the laboratory confirmed cases have died Sierra-Leone 2 probable cases of EVD were reported from Sierra Leone in one family who died in Guinea and their bodies repatriated to Sierra Leone. Mali 4 patients suspected to have a viral haemorrhagic fever who presented for health care in Sibiribougou, Koulikoro Region of Mali. Two of the suspected cases had travelled from Guinea."

"Two out of three suspected Ebola cases in Mali “do not contain the Ebola virus,’’ the Malian government said on Tuesday. “The results of the third suspected case are still under examination,’’ the government said, adding that so far there was no confirmed Ebola case in Mali."

"The World Health Organization launched a raft of emergency measures in the Guinean capital Conakry Thursday to control an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus that has so far killed a hundred people across the country."

"As of 10 April, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) of Liberia has reported a cumulative total of 5 laboratory confirmed cases and 20 suspected cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). The date of onset of the most recent confirmed case is 6 April, with 6 patients currently hospitalised. Lofa County accounts for 32% of the clinical cases reported to date (4 laboratory confirmed and 6 suspected cases) followed by Margibi County (27%, 1 confirmed and 5 suspected cases). Other Counties at risk include Bong (4 suspected cases) and Nimba (3 suspected cases). Montserrado and Grand Cape Mount Counties have each reported one suspected case. At present 32 contacts remain under medical observation. The cumulative number of 12 deaths are being attributed to EVD; Lofa (9), Nimba (1), Margibi (1) and Montserrado (1). All 5 laboratory confirmed cases have died. Laboratory confirmed deaths have occurred in Lofa County (4) and Margibi County (1)...As of 10 April, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Mali reports a cumulative total of 6 suspected cases after 2 suspected cases tested negative for ebolavirus and other viral haemorrhagic fever viruses in assays conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta."

"In March 2014, the World Health Organization was notified of an outbreak of a communicable disease characterized by fever, severe diarrhea, vomiting, and a high fatality rate in Guinea. Virologic investigation identified Zaire ebolavirus (EBOV) as the causative agent. Full-length genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis showed that EBOV from Guinea forms a separate clade in relationship to the known EBOV strains from the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon. Epidemiologic investigation linked the laboratory-confirmed cases with the presumed first fatality of the outbreak in December 2013. This study demonstrates the emergence of a new EBOV strain in Guinea."

"As of 18:00 on 20 April, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 208 clinical cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), including 136 deaths. To date, 169 patients have been tested for ebolavirus infection and 112 cases have been laboratory confirmed, including 69 deaths. From 13 March, the date of onset of the first laboratory confirmed case in Liberia, to 21 April, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia has reported a total of 34 clinically compatible cases of EVD; 6 confirmed cases, including 6 deaths, 2 probable cases and 26 suspected cases.As of 22 April 2014, clinical samples from 19 clinically compatible cases of EVD have been tested at the Kenema Government Hospital. All 19 samples tested negative for ebolavirus."

"As of 18:00 on 1 May 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 226 clinical cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), including 149 deaths. Of 210 patients tested for ebolavirus infection, 127 cases have been laboratory confirmed by PCR, including 81 deaths...The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare (MOHSW) of Liberia has completed the process of revising clinical cases of EVD based on their final laboratory results. All cases which tested PCR positive or ebolavirus IgM positive have been reclassified as “confirmed acute” cases. PCR negative but ebolavirus IgG positive cases are considered “confirmed convalescent” cases. Following the reclassification of suspected cases, as of 2 May the total number of clinical EVD cases reported in Liberia is 13 (6 confirmed, 2 probable and 5 suspected cases), including 11 deaths. There were 2 confirmed cases in HCWs, both of whom died. There have been no new clinical cases in Liberia since 6 April."

"The Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 231 clinical cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD), including 155 deaths, according to a World Health Organization (WHO) update today...The geographical distribution of clinical cases of EVD since the beginning of the outbreak is: Conakry (53 cases, including 24 deaths), Guekedou (145/105), Macenta (22/16), Kissidougou (6/5), Dabola (4/4) and Djingaraye(1/1). There have been no new cases of EVD in Kissidougou since 1 April and in Macenta since 9 April. In Djingaraye and Dabola, no new cases have been reported since the end of March 2014."

"Yet on May 25, 2014 the sad news came as a rude awakening for the health authorities and the people of Sierra Leone, Ebola had struck in the very place everyone had been looking; Koindi, Kissy Teng chiefdom, in the Kailahun district east of Sierra Leone near the border with Guinea."

"On 7 May 2014, the Ministry of Health (MOH) of Guinea has reported a cumulative total of 236 clinical cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD), including 158 deaths... As of 7 May, 113 experts have been deployed to assist in the response. This includes 54 experts deployed through the global WHO surge mechanism, 33 international experts from among partner institutions of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN), 10 externally recruited consultants, 16 WHO staff who were locally repurposed."

"As of May 23, 2014, 8 new cases and 3 new deaths were reported from one newly affected district, Telimele (3 cases and 0 deaths) and two existing affected areas, Gueckedou (2 cases and 0 deaths) and Macenta (3 cases and 3 deaths). Since the beginning of the outbreak, the cumulative total number of clinical cases of EVD is 258, including 174 deaths. The geographical distribution of the clinical cases of EVD is as follows: Conakry (50 cases, including 25 deaths), Gueckedou (170/121), Macenta (22/17), Kissidougou (8/6), Dabola (4/4), Djinguiraye (1/1) and Telimele (3/0)"

"The WHO has documented a total of 281 clinical cases of Ebola, including 185 deaths in Guinea since the virus was first identified as Ebola in March. The disease is thought to have killed 11 people in Liberia, thought there have been no new cases there since April 9. Sixteen cases - seven of them confirmed through laboratory testing and another nine suspected - have been reported in Sierra Leone's Kailahun district, where four people were believed to have died of the disease."

"Cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in Sierra Leone have more than tripled in just 3 days, from 16 reported on May 27 to 50 reported today by the World Health Organization (WHO). The agency also reported 10 new EVD cases in Guinea and 1 in Liberia...The 34 new cases in Sierra Leone include 7 confirmed, 3 probable, and 24 suspected, as well as 1 (suspected-case) death in five districts. The WHO said that the country now has a total of 14 confirmed, 3 probable, and 36 suspected EVD cases, including 6 deaths...Guinea's 10 new cases bring the country's total to 291, including 193 fatal cases. The WHO broke down the cases as 172 confirmed (including 108 deaths), 71 probable (62 fatal), and 48 suspected (23 fatal). Seven of the 10 new cases were fatal...The WHO also reported a new fatal case in Foya district in Liberia...Liberia had not reported an EVD case since Apr 9 and now has 35, according to previous reports."

"Guinean Health Minister, Remy Lamah on Sunday...'113 deaths are been recorded out of the 178 confirmed cases throughout the Guinean territory," said Lamah, during a press conference. He added that the virus has gained ground around the country because of "laxness" and "lack of information.' "

Christian Aid is collaborating with the Council of Churches, Sierra Leone (CCSL) and district health authorities to prevent the spread of disease. There are now five confirmed deaths and a further 31 suspected cases.

WHO reports 328 cases in Guinea, of which 193 are confirmed. There have been 208 deaths. In the period between May 29 and June 1, at least 21 people died and 37 new suspected cases were reported. During this period, Sierra Leone recorded 3 new confirmed and 10 suspected cases

79 confirmed and suspected cases have been recorded in Sierra Leone to date. The death count has jumped from one death a week ago to six currently. Liberia has not had new cases for two months. The suspected death in Foya is attributed to an individual believed to have been infected in Kailahun, Sierra Leone, and was taken back to Kailahun to be buried.

WHO reports 11 new cases (8 confirmed, 1 probable, 2 suspected) and 3 new deaths in Guinea between June 2 and 3. The breakdown is as follows: Conakry (7 new cases and 1 death), Gueckedou (2 new cases and 1 death), Telimele (1 new case and 0 deaths), and Boffa (1 new case and 1 death). There are now 344 cases in Guinea (207 confirmed, 81 probable, and 56 suspected cases) including 215 deaths. The geographical distribution of these cases and deaths is as follows: Conakry, 65 cases and 27 deaths; Gueckedou, 193 cases and 143 deaths; Macenta, 44 cases and 26 deaths; Dabola, 4 cases and 4 deaths; Kissidougou, 7 cases and 5 deaths; Dinguiraye, 1 case and 1 death; Telimele, 23 cases and 5 deaths; and Boffa, 7 cases and 4 deaths. In Sierra Leone, WHO reports 9 new suspected cases between June 2 and 5. The current case count is 81 (31 confirmed, 3 probable, 47 suspected) including 6 deaths. Most cases are from Kailahun district. Liberia has not had any new confirmed cases since April 6.

"The World Health Organization says 22 new cases of Ebola virus were reported in Sierra Leone between May 29th and June 5. WHO counts 81 cases with 6 deaths but Sierra Leone’s health ministry says it has a total of 95 confirmed and suspected cases...At least 35 lab-confirmed cases have been traced to a traditional healer whose grieving patients handled her infected body at her funeral."

The number of deaths from Ebola in Sierra Leone has doubled from 6 to 12 in the last week, according to Sierra Leonian health authorities. There may be more unconfirmed deaths. Director of Disease Control and Prevention for Sierra Leone, Amara Jambai, said there have been 42 confirmed cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone.

"At least 231 people have died since the outbreak of the fearsome disease, which causes bleeding internally and externally and for which there is no known cure. Guinea has recorded just over 200 deaths, along with about a dozen each in Sierra Leone and Liberia"

"In Sierra Leone, 114 suspected cases have been tested for Ebola, with 43 confirmed cases and 16 deaths. All deaths are confirmed cases from the Kailahun district, two of which traveled from Kailahun to Kambia district."

On June 11, Sierra Leone shut its borders to trade with Guinea and Liberia and closed schools, cinemas, and nightclubs in a frontier region to slow the spread of Ebola. Health checkpoints will be established in the eastern Kailahun district and Ebola victims must be buried under supervision of health personnel.

The Sierra Leone government has announced a state of emergency in the Kailahun district due to the Ebola virus that has killed 17 in the nation. According to government figures, there have been 122 suspected and 46 confirmed cases in the district.

Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation has confirmed 50 cases of the 132 tested cases. There have been 17 deaths. The Ministry is not restricting the movement of people but is implementing screening at checkpoints and border crossing areas.

"Liberia’s Health and Social Welfare Ministry (MOHSW) has confirmed a fresh outbreak in New Kru Town with seven cases reported...six have been confirmed dead." These cases are attributed to a woman who traveled to Kailahun District, Sierra Leone and settled in New Kru Town with family members, as well as six contacts. Since the start of the outbreak in Liberia, there have been 17 deaths out of 31 reported cases.

"On June 10, 2014, The Ministry of Health (MoH) of Guinea reported 376 suspect and confirmed cases of Ebola hemorrhagic fever (EHF), including 241 fatal cases and 233 laboratory confirmed cases. New cases were reported in Gueckedou, Telimele, and Boffa districts and follow-up investigations continue in Conakry, Boke, and Dubreka districts in the west, and Macenta, and Kouroussa districts in the south. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation of Sierra Leone reported 117 suspect cases, 19 fatal cases, and 43 laboratory confirmed cases on June 9, 2014. Confirmed cases have been reported from the Kailahun district, near Gueckedou, Guinea, and for the first time in Kambia and Port Loko districts in northwest Sierra Leone. Reports of and investigations of suspect cases continue in Kailahun, Kenema, Kono, Bo, Moyamba , Kambia, Koinadugu, Port Loko, Tonkolili, Bombali, and Western area districts. Laboratory testing is being conducted in Kenema city. Sierra Leone and WHO have sent experts to aid in the response and investigation. On June 7, 2014, the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of Liberia reported 1 laboratory confirmed EHF case and 1 new death in the Foya District of Liberia. This is the first reported case since April 6, 2014."

Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah reported seven new deaths from Ebola in Monrovia, Sierra Leone's capital. One of the deaths was a woman who had traveled to an infected area in Sierra Leone and is believed to have brought the disease back with her to the capital city. Four of the seven deaths have been confirmed to be victims of Ebola. Nyenswah reports 16 deaths in the country so far.

Director of the Community Health Department in Voinjama, Lofa County, Edmund Esiah, reports nine new cases of Ebola at the Tellewoyan Hospital in Voinjama. Six have been confirmed and the remaining three are suspected, awaiting lab confirmation. One person has died. The victim had traveled from Sierra Leone to the Tellewoyan Memorial Hospital to seek treatment.

According to a WHO update, Guinea saw 7 new cases and 5 new deaths between June 14 and 16 (Gueckedou had 4 cases and 5 deaths, Boffa had 3 cases). To date, there have been 398 cases (254 confirmed, 88 probable and 56 suspected) and 264 deaths. The geographical breakdown is as follows: Conakry, 70 cases and 33 deaths; Gueckedou, 224 cases and 173 deaths; Macenta, 41 cases and 28 deaths; Dabola, 4 cases and 4 deaths; Kissidougou, 8 cases and 5 deaths; Dinguiraye, 1 case and 1 death; Telimele, 30 cases and 9 deaths; Bofa, 19 cases and 10 deaths; and Kouroussa, 1 case and 1 death. Sierra Leone had 31 new cases and 4 new deaths between June 15 and 17 (Kailahun had 29 cases and 4 deaths, Kono had 1 case, and Western had 1 case). To date, Sierra Leone has had 97 cases (92 confirmed, 3 probable, and 2 suspected) and 49 deaths. The geographical distribution is as follows: Kailahun, 92 cases and 46 deaths; Kambia, 1 case; Port Loko, 2 cases and 1 death; Kono, 1 case; and Western, 1 case and 1 death. Liberia had 9 new cases and 5 new deaths between June 11 and 16 (Lofa had 6 cases, Montserrado had 3 cases and 5 deaths). The cumulative total of cases is 33 (18 confirmed, 8 probable, and 7 suspected) with 24 deaths. The geographical distribution of these cases and deaths is as follows: Lofa, 21 cases and 14 deaths; Montserrado, 8 cases and 8 deaths; Margibi, 2 cases and 2 deaths; and Nimba, 2 cases and 0 deaths. Since the beginning of this outbreak, West Africa has had a total of 528 confirmed and suspected cases (combined), including 337 deaths.

Many people in Sierra Leone have refused to accept Western approaches to dealing with the disease. They prefer to use traditional healers, which may help the disease spread faster. Some believe that victims have been cursed by a "witch gun," and that only a witch doctor can remove the curse. Official healthcare workers have been denied access to the sick or refused blood samples. In one case, health workers were stoned by villagers who were trying to remove ebola patients from a healthcare center. "Given a health-care system lacking decent equipment, qualified staff and affordable drugs (rather than the more popular counterfeit ones), a lack of faith in Western medicine is understandable. The ministry of health has put out flyers with answers to questions such as “Is it true Ebola is a curse?” and “Can a mix of ginger, honey, garlic, onion and vinegar cure ebola?” At the same time, the authorities have used mobile-phone networks to warn people by text to avoid eating the meat of bats, one of the disease’s prime carriers. A band based in neighbouring Liberia, which also has the scourge, has released a catchy new song with lyrics such as “Ebola, ebola in town/Don’t touch your friend/No eating something/It’s dangerous”."

A senior official for Medecins Sans Frontiers (MSF, or Doctors Without Borders) has declared West Africa's Ebola outbreak "totally out of control." Armand Sprecher, a public health specialist with MSF, said it "is the highest outbreak on record and has the highest number of deaths, so this is unprecedented so far."

Liberia's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare has declared eight deaths in Monrovia since June 8. The country's total number of lab-confirmed deaths is 17, and there are at least seven suspected deaths.

Pierre Formenty, a WHO specialist, attributes the recent resurgence of Ebola in West Africa to a "relaxation" of efforts to contain the virus. Although the first wave of cases began to diminish by the end of April, a second wave that began in early May is now hitting West Africa. Formenty stresses that one cas can restart an entire epidemic. WHO, Medecins Sans Frontiers (Doctors Without Borders), and other international partners have sent 100-160 international experts to work on the ground to get the outbreak under control.

Guinean health authorities have reported 258 cases and 160 deaths--significantly lower numbers than what the WHO reports. Four of these cases are recent, three from Guekedou and one from Boffa. Recent deaths include two in Tielimele and one in Boffa.

A WHO update shows 567 cases and 350 deaths in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia. While most of the deaths are in Guinea, the growth of cases has been greater in Sierra Leone recently. Medecins Sans Frontiers has stated that the outbreak will require a "massive deployment of resources."

"The Minister of Health and Sanitation, Miatta Kargbo and Team has concluded a one day Mano River Union (MRU) Ministers of Health Meeting in Conakry, Guinea to strengthen collaboration, communication and coordination in the fight against the spread of the Ebola disease."

According to a WHO update, Guinea now has 390 reported cases (260 confirmed, 87 probable, and 43 suspected) and 270 deaths. The geographical distribution is as follows: Conakry, 65 cases and 33 deaths; Gueckedou, 226 cases and 177 deaths; Macenta, 41 cases and 28 deaths; Dabola, 4 cases and 4 deaths; Kissidougou, 6 cases and 5 deaths; Dinguiraye, 1 case and 1 death; Telimele, 25 cases and 9 deaths; Boffa, 21 cases and 12 deaths; and Kouroussa, 1 case and 1 death. Currently, 19 patients are in EVD Treatment Centres in Conakry (9), Gueckedou (9), and Telimele (1). Between June 18 and 20, there were no new cases but 3 new deaths in Guinea (2 from Gueckedou and 1 from Telimele). In Sierra Leone, there are now 158 reported cases (147 confirmed, 8 probable, and 3 suspected) and 34 deaths from confirmed cases. Between June 18 and 20, no new cases were reported but 4 new deaths occurred in Sierra Leone (3 from Kailahun and 1 from Kenema). The geographical breakdown of the total cases and deaths is as follows: Kailahun, 135 cases and 32 deaths; Kambia, 1 case and 0 deaths; Port Loko, 2 cases and 0 deaths; Kenema, 19 cases and 2 deaths; and Western, 1 case and 0 deaths. Currently, 52 patients are in EVD Treatment Centres in Kenema (12) and Kailahun (40). In Liberia, 10 new cases and 8 new deaths were reported between June 19 and 22 (Lofa: 8 cases, 6 deaths; Montserrado: 2 cases, 2 deaths). The total number of cases in Liberia is now 51 (34 confirmed, 10 probable, and 7 suspected) with 34 deaths. The geographical breakdown is as follows: Lofa, 36 cases and 21 deaths; Montserrado, 11 cases and 11 deaths; Margibi, 2 cases and 2 deaths; and Nimba, 2 cases and 0 deaths.

A new center has opened for Ebola patients at the ELWA Hospital in Paynesville (outside Monrovia, Liberia). Some see the opening of this center as dangerous and worrisome, in part because of its nearness to the hospital laboratory and Nurses' Station, where visitors and family members come in and out daily.

Liberia's Assistant Health Minister, Tolbert Nyensweah, reports a total of 29 confirmed cases of Ebola in the country, after the discovery of 10 new cases. According to the government, there are an additional 14 suspected cases. Of the confirmed cases, 21 are in Lofa County and eight are in Monrovia. Three more deaths were confirmed recently, with over 30 deaths total.

The WHO has altered its fatality reporting in Sierra Leone at the request of the government. Previously, the death count had reached 58, with both probable and suspected deaths included. Now, the WHO will only report lab-confirmed cases in Sierra Leone's death count, lowering the number to 34. Fatality reporting in Guinea and Liberia will remain unchanged. There have been a total of 599 cases and 338 fatalities in West Africa due to the Ebola outbreak.

The Sierra Leonean Chief Medical Officer in the Ministry of Health, Brima Kargbo, has stated that 46 people have died in the country during the outbreak. Kargbo reported 163 confirmed cases, 142 of which are from the Kailahun district.

"Dr. Bart Janssens, MSF director of operations said, 'The epidemic is out of control. With the appearance of new sites in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia, there is a real risk of it spreading to other area'. He goes on to say, 'We have reached our limits', noting the organizations inability to send teams to the new outbreak sites."

Several health workers were chased by a number of citizens of Konia Town, Zeyeama Clan in Zorzor District, Lofa County (Liberia) as they tried to raise awareness about Ebola. The citizens claimed that reports of the Ebola outbreak were false.

There have now been 635 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola in West Africa, with 399 deaths. This is the largest outbreak in history "in terms of the number of cases and deaths, as well as geographical spread." The WHO has called for "drastic action" to be taken against the disease. WHO will convene a meeting of health ministers from 11 countries in Accra, Ghana "to discuss the best way of tackling the crisis collectively as well as develop a comprehensive inter country operational response plan."

At least 20 OFWs (Overseas Filipino Workers) have chosen to return to the Philippines from Sierra Leone following declarations that the Ebola outbreak is "out of control." The OFWs' manning agencies requested the DFA to help remove them from the area.

Medics in Guinea have expressed their frustration with how government officials have handled the Ebola outbreak. "They lied, so our partners, and even the local population, put down their guard. And this is the result -- the epidemic has spread throughout the country," says Dr Alphadio of the Donka hospital. The Guinean president, Alpha Conde, has been criticized for saying that the outbreak was "well in hand" during a visit to WHO headquarters in Geneva in April. Religious leaders are also telling the government to take action. An imam, Thierno Ousmane Camara, recently called on the president "not to play down this disease, which, sadly, is causing so much grief to families." Similar frustration against the government exists in Liberia, where the government has not conducted any public awareness campaigns or implemented specific prevention measures against Ebola.

Where cases have disappeared or results have returned negative, people think that Ebola is "make-believe" or that it never existed. Hygiene measures are no longer followed: people shake hands and kiss at the market and buckets of chlorinated water for hand-washing have disappeared from restaurants. "Some even believe that the virus was in the chlorinated water," says Simon Gbanamou, a resident of Macenta with a degree in medicine helping to raise public awareness. Vigilance has diminished, even though MSF and WHO have warned not to claim victory against the disease just yet.

WHO reports that Guinea now has 396 cases and 280 deaths, Sierra Leone has 176 cases and 46 deaths, and Liberia has 63 cases and 41 deaths. In total the 3 nations have had 635 cases and 367 deaths. Over 150 experts have been deployed by the WHO to help stop the spread of Ebola.

Some infected patients are being kept in churches so that they can be healed through prayer. Liberia's Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Bernice Dahn, has warned churches to stop keeping infected people from going to hospitals. Three suspected Ebola patients died in a church in New Kru Town when they went in for prayer. "The churches are not hospitals," said Dr. Dahn.

An Ebola patient, recently diagnosed positive for the virus, fled the Kenema Government Hospital and caused serious alarm. The Ministry of Health and Sanitation issued a press release warning people to be vigilant and to report the patient's presence to prevent the spread of disease. The patient reported fled with his mother and other family members to Bo City.

Sierra Leone's Health Ministry has warned that it is a serious crime to shelter someone infected by Ebola. The Health Ministry also laments the fact that some patients have discharged themselves from the hospital and gone into hiding. "The Health Ministry wishes the general public to know that any person who obstructs or interferes with the performance of the medical team in any of the ebola observation and treatment centres, would be guilty of an offence and liable to punishment," said the statement.

Pierre Formenty of the WHO told journalists in Geneva, "The situation is not out of hand." He continued, “WHO has been supporting the three affected countries and their Ministries of Health staff, and are working with them on a daily basis to try to contain the outbreak.”

"We need to find a special place to bury these corpses, if not, the bodies will keep piling up on us. If we don't bury them, they will begin to decompose and then that will be trouble for all of us," said a burial team member. Sometimes citizens chase burial teams away. They also try to wait for consent from the family before burying, and some family members are afraid to come up to identify the bodies of relatives.

"Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf expressed concern about a resurgence of Ebola in the country: 'As the number of cases and deaths of Ebola virus disease continues to rise in our sub region, we are all gravely concerned by the rate at which this cross-border transmission is taking place.' The virus is currently affecting Lofa, Montserrado, and Margibi County. The Ministry of Health reports 90 confirmed cases in Liberia, including 49 deaths."

"Dr. Amara Jambai, Sierra Leone's director of disease prevention and control, said at least 57 suspected and confirmed Ebola cases have gone "missing," as victims have fled treatment centers and gone into hiding. 'My biggest problem, as it stands, is getting people to accept the disease,' said Sheik Umar Khan, the doctor leading the fight against Ebola in Kenema's hospital."

"Fear of contracting Ebola has slowed patient turnout at the Redemption Hospital in the Borough of New Kru Town (Liberia). The has virus killed at least four patients and a nurse at the hospital. Most patients are now requesting to be taken to the outpatient department rather than the inpatient department so they can leave the same day. Nurses have been working in fear of contracting the disease."

"The number of deaths attributed to an epidemic of Ebola virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone stood at 467 by Monday, out of 759 known cases in total, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday."

The Red Cross temporarily removed international staff from an Ebola center in Gueckedou, in the southeast of Guinea. Operations were suspended following a threat on a Red Cross vehicle by locals wielding knives. MSF has faced similar threats.

The Philippines' Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) has raised the alert on Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia to Level 2 (Restriction Phase). This alert level restricts non-essential movements of Filipinos in these countries and warns them to avoid public places and take extra precautions.

Nurses at the C.H. Rennie Memorial Hospital in Kakata, Liberia have fled their work due to fear of contracting Ebola. The nurses blame the lack of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) needed to treat suspected Ebola patients, saying this endangers their lives and puts their families and communitites at risk. The nurses have refused to work until the PPEs and other safeguards are provided.

A Ugandan doctor serving at Redeption Hospital in New Kru Town has died of Ebola. This is the fourth death of a healthcare worker nationally. There have been 17 newly reported Ebola cases in the country.

"UNICEF reports 90 deaths in Liberia. Of the confirmed cases, 26 are from Lofa County, 1 is from Margibi County, and 16 are from Montserrado County. 9 cases have been healthcare workers, of which 5 have died."

Sierra Leone's President Koroma reported 199 lab-confirmed cases of 388 tested cases, including 65 confirmed deaths and 23 discharged cases in an address to the nation. He adds, 'This is a national fight, and all must be involved. And I strongly believe that our country has the goodwill, the resilience and the determination to scale this challenge.'

Liberia's Health Ministry reports 104 suspected and 48 confirmed cases in the country, including 66 deaths. 35 of these deaths were reported from Lofa County, 2 from Margibi County, and 29 from Montserrado County.

Keiji Fukuda, the WHO assistant director-general of health security, said 'I certainly expect that we are going to be dealing with this outbreak, minimum, for a few months to several months.' He expressed hope that a turnaround would come, with a decrease in cases over the next several weeks.

Guinea: MSF/Doctors Without Borders no longer allowed to visit 20 villages in southern Guinea due to hostility.

Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF/Doctors Without Borders) can no longer visit 20 villages in southern Guinea, where healthcare workers have faced too much hostility. “A worrying issue is that because of the lack of understanding of the disease there’s a real problem in communities in southern Guinea with growing hostility towards any foreigners. And this is really due to a lack of effort to explain well enough the reality of the disease,” said Bart Janssens, the MSF director of operations. Janssens stated that MSF, "which has sent 300 staff members and 40 tons of equipment, has reached the limits of what it can do."

Public health officials warn that there is a high risk of spread beyond the 60 locations already affected. According to CBC news, however, many experts believe that the Ebola outbreak in West Africa is unlikely to spread outside of Africa. Some of the main factors allowing the virus to spread so rapidly are cultural practices that are not practiced elsewhere.

Grassroots doctors published a letter in The Lancet warning that many cases in Sierra Leone are going undetected. Their explanation cited Sierra Leone's poverty and lack of doctors, diagnostic tools, a disease-monitoring network, and protective clothing for healthcare workers as reasons why the country is struggling to contain the Ebola outbreak. Many cases are unreported because sick people may choose to self-treat or use traditional medicine rather than go to a hospital. In addition, diagnostic tests are expensive and diagnosis may stigmatize a patient.

"The Ministry of Health and Sanitation in Sierra Leone said there have been 73 deaths as a result of 254 confirmed cases of the Ebola virus. There are 92 patients currently in treatment centers, the ministry said today in an e-mailed statement. Cases of the hemorrhagic fever have killed 467 people, including at least 32 health workers, in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, the World Health Organization said yesterday."

"In Conakry, MSF has treated 59 Ebola patients, 33 of whom have recovered. In Gueckedou, they have treated 130 patients, and 31 have recovered. In Telimele, they have treated 21, and 16 have recovered. In Macenta, 7 people were treated and 2 recovered. In Sierra Leone, MSF is operating in Kailahun, Kenema, Koindu, and Daru. They treated 45 in Kailahun; 12 died. In Liberia, an MSF team of 4 is supporting the MoH in the fight to stop the spread of Ebola in Monrovia. MSF is handing over operations in Foya to another NGO."

"Liberia's Health Ministry has disclosed that the total number of deaths from the Ebola virus in the country has risen to 66 as of July 2. Addressing the Ministry of Information regular press briefing in Monrovia, Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, Tolbert Nyenswah said of the 66 deaths, Lofa County accounts for 35. Montserrado County, which hosts the Liberian capital Monrovia, accounts for 29, while two deaths are recorded in Margibi County. Mr. Nyesuah put the cumulative probable and suspected cases at 104 and total confirmed cases at 48."

"In a statement, the United Nations agency said that the latest figures from health ministries in the three countries showed a total of 844 cases including 518 deaths in the epidemic that began in February."

"The total number of laboratory-confirmed, probable or suspected cases of Ebola in the region has now risen to 844, the WHO said. The hardest-hit country remains Guinea, with 408 cases and 307 deaths. Liberia reported 16 new cases and nine deaths, bringing its overall count to 131 cases, with 84 fatalities. Sierra Leone's figures showed 34 new cases and 14 deaths. That took its case-count to 305 and its death toll to 127."

"Making the disclosure yesterday at Capitol Hill during the Senate 45th day sitting in its chambers, Grand Kru County Senator, Dr. Peter S. Coleman, told Plenary that it is essential that funds should be allotted in order to equip the Health Ministry to combat the virus."

"Senator Coleman, who won on the ticket of the opposition Congress for Democratic Change (CDC) in his presentation to his colleagues in chambers, disclosed that there are 138 cases of Ebola in the country currently with 43 deaths recorded. Out of these 43 deaths, 10 health workers have also died in the process."

Kenenma Hospital, Sierra Leone: "The government hospital in Kenema, Sierra Leone has been hit hard by Ebola; to date, 7 healthcare workers infected at the hospital have died. Health workers, some of whom are volunteers, have been working long hours in close contact with the disease. Workers in the Ebola ward went on strike, saying that the 100,000 leone (US$23) monthly bonus was inadequate considering the risks associated with working with Ebola patients."

Liberia's Ministry of Health and Social Welfare is holding information sessions for community leaders in Montserrado, Margibi, and Lofa Counties with support from the WHO. Sessions are also being conducted around the country for religious leaders.

"Liberia’s Ministry of Health (MOH) has reported two new Ebola cases, bringing the cumulative cases to 143 including 64 confirmed. According to Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services Tolbert Nyensuah, one new death was reported, bringing the total number of deaths to 81, including 38 confirmed deaths."

"Ever since the outbreak of Ebola, he explained that out of the 433 Screened Ebola cases, 211 have been confirmed positive of the dreadful disease. Out of the 211, Kailahun he expressed has 165; Kenema has 42; Kambia 1; Port Loko 2 and Bo 1. And out of the 211 total infected cases within the country, 67, he revealed, have died of the disease."

"The World Health Organization reported Friday 44 new cases of Ebola in West Africa and 21 more deaths between July 6 and July 8. The total in the worst outbreak of the deadly virus now stands at 888 cases, including 539 deaths since February, according to Reuters."

Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health reports 315 lab-confirmed Ebola cases including 99 deaths. The disease has reached the capital after an Egyptian patient traveled from Kenema to Freetown.

"There have been 99 Ebola deaths in Sierra Leone out of 315 laboratory-confirmed cases, the ministry said in an e-mailed statement today. The ministry said yesterday that 92 people had died out of 305 cases. Cases of the hemorrhagic fever have killed more than 540 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in an outbreak that according to the World Health Organization may last another three to four months."

"In Guinea, there were six new reported cases and three deaths. 'As of 12 July 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the three countries stands at 964, including 603 deaths,' WHO said. 'The distribution and classification of the cases are as follows: Guinea, 406 cases and 304 deaths; Liberia, 172 cases and 105 deaths; and Sierra Leone, 386 cases and 194 deaths.'"

Between July 8 and 12, 68 new deaths were reported in the three countries. Only three of those deaths were from Guinea; the rest were from Sierra Leone and Liberia. MSF reports facing hostility, mistrust, and intimidation tactics.

"Among the cases, 104 are from Lofa County in northern Liberia where the disease first entered the country from neighboring Guinea, 55 from Montserrado County, 3 from Margibi County and 1 from Bomi County. Of the 94 deaths, 42 have been lab-confirmed."

Following requests made during an 11-nation meeting in Accra, Ghana, the WHO has activated a Sub-regional Outbreak Coordination Center in Conakry, Guinea. The center will be responsible for tasks including ensuring effective use and deployment of limited, critical resources based on prioritization and objectives.

"A senior health official here has alarmed of the issuance of 'false Ebola vaccine' by imposters, acting as health workers in Monrovia and surroundings. Deputy Health Minister for Research Planning, Ms. Yah Zolia told UNMIL radio Wednesday, July 16 that the Health Ministry is receiving reports of imposters offering Ebola vaccine in some communities."

"Cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) in West Africa continue surfacing at a steady clip, as the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed 18 new illnesses and 11 new deaths over 2 days. The new figures expand what is by far the largest and deadliest Ebola outbreak in history to 982 cases and 613 deaths."

"Sierra Leone, one of three West African nations hit by the worst-ever outbreak of the Ebola virus, will create an emergency center to coordinate responses to contain a disease that’s killed 127 people in the country. The center, which will be located at the World Health Organization’s office in the capital Freetown, will act as a central command unit to link district health officials with regional authorities, the health ministry said in an e-mailed statement. Sierra Leone has 397 confirmed cases of Ebola."

"The Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) outbreak in West Africa has hit a new “milestone” as the World Health Organization reports in an update today than the number of cases have exceeded 1,000...The WHO says as of 17 July 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the three countries stands at 1,048, including 632 deaths. The breakdown by country is as follows:
Guinea, 410 cases (301 confirmed, 95 probable, and 14 suspected) and 310 deaths (203 confirmed, 95 probable, and 12 suspected); Liberia, 196 cases (76 confirmed, 56 probable, and 64 suspected) and 116 deaths (54 confirmed, 40 probable, and 22 suspected); and Sierra Leone, 442 cases (368 confirmed, 48 probable, and 26 suspected) and 206 deaths (165 confirmed, 35 probable, and 6 suspected)."

"Four nurses working at the Phebe Hospital in Suakoko, Bong County, have reportedly contracted the Ebola virus, while the test result of the fifth nurse is yet to be released. All four nurses, whose names were not disclosed, have since been transferred to the John F. Kennedy Hospital in Monrovia and the ELWA Hospital in Paynesville where they are being treated and monitored by doctors."

Sheik Umar Khan, a Sierra Leonean virologist credited with treating over 100 Ebola patients, has contracted the disease himself. 3 nurses working alongside Khan also caught the disease and died. Approximately 100 healthcare workers have been infected so far and 50 have died.

There have now been 1093 cases including 660 deaths. Cases in Guinea have declined significantly, but the situation continues to worsen in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Sierra Leone is now the epicentre of the outbreak, reporting 454 cases.

A Liberian man is being tested for Ebola in Lagos, Nigeria. This would be the country's first case. Nigeria is Africa's most populous nation, with 170 million people, and Lagos is the country's commercial capital.

Liberian authorities have announced that 75% of the country's 129 Ebola deaths have been women. Liberia has reported a total of 249 cases so far. Many women are vulnerable because they engage in cross-border trade between Liberia and Guinea.

Authorities at Liberia's JFK Memorial Hospital are considering a shutdown of hospital activities for 21 days due to the increase in reported Ebola cases. JFK is one of the biggest state-run referral hospitals. Dr. Samuel Brisbane, one of the hospital's senior medical practitioners, died on Thursday, July 24. Some nurses have fled due to fear of contracting the disease and the hospital's supposed refusal to pay their salary and incentives.

The Liberian man who was being tested for Ebola in Lagos has died and been confirmed as Nigeria's first Ebola case. He arrived and collapsed at the airport in Lagos from Monrovia after a brief stopover in Togo.

The WHO reports 108 new cases and 12 new deaths between July 21 and 23. Guinea had 12 new cases and 5 deaths, Liberia had 25 new cases and 2 deaths, and Sierra Leone had 71 new cases and 5 deaths. The total number of cases is now 1201 including 672 deaths. The distribution is as follows: Guinea, 427 cases (311 confirmed, 99 probable, and 17 suspected) and 319 deaths (208 confirmed, 99 probable, and 12 suspected); Liberia, 249 cases (84 confirmed, 84 probable, and 81 suspected) and 129 deaths (60 confirmed, 50 probable, and 19 suspected); and Sierra Leone, 525 cases (419 confirmed, 56 probable, and 50 suspected) and 224 deaths (188 confirmed, 33 probable, and 3 suspected). The WHO is also conducting tests to confirm Nigeria's first suspected case and death. Initial tests conducted at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital were positive for the virus.

Nigeria is on high alert after the death of a Liberian man in Lagos. Officials in Togo also went on high alert. "Wider screening and re-checking of patients entering local hospitals have been stepped up...Nigerian airports are now setting up holding rooms to [be] ready in case another Ebola victim arrives in the country."

Two Americans have now contracted Ebola while working to combat the disease in Liberia. Dr. Brantly and missionary Nancy Writebol were both working at a Samaritan's Purse compound in Liberia when they fell ill.

A woman suffering from the first confirmed case of Ebola in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, has died of the disease. She was forcibly removed from the hospital by relatives and later died en route to an Ebola treatment center when she decided again to seek treatment.

The hospital where a Liberian man died of Ebola has been quarantined and hospital staff who had close contact with the victim have been isolated. The hospital will be closed for a week. Nigerian airports, seaports, and borders are on "red alert."

The Liberian Ministry of Finance and Development Planning has shut down temporarily for sanitizing following the death of Patrick Sawyer, Coordinator of the ECOWAS National Unit. Mr. Sawyer's death was the first confirmed case in Nigeria. All senior officials who had contact with Mr. Sawyer have been placed under surveillance and requested to telecommute.

Sierra Leone has become the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak. MSF is scaling up its response in the country with 22 international and 250 local staff currently working to control the outbreak. The situation is worsening in Liberia, where 7 counties are affected. New cases in Conakry and Gueckedou (Guinea) have been slowing, and MSF has closed a center in Telimele where 75% of patients have recovered.

Two sick passengers have been quarantined and tested for Ebola; one in Hong Kong and one in Birmingham, England. The case in Hong Kong is a woman who recently returned from Africa with Ebola-like symptoms and is in a hospital isolation ward while testing is conducted. The Birmingham case is a man who arrived from Nigeria and was taken to hospital isolation after reporting that he felt feverish.

Peace Corps announced it will withdraw 340 volunteers from Ebola affected countries after two of its aid volunteers were exposed to an Ebola infected patient. The exposed volunteers are to be quarantined until cleared by doctors.

Liberian Justice Minister Christian Tah ordered buses and taxis to reduce their passenger loads or face criminal charges. "The Justice Minister promised to provide police protection for health workers because of a number of threats coming out of some communities". It was reiterated that all border points would be manned by health workers conducting screenings.

New report by Liberia's health ministry puts Ebola case counts as follows: Total deaths: 181. "Of these, the total confirmed deaths are 82, total suspected deaths 23 and total probable deaths 76" Total cases: 360. "Of these, total suspected cases stand at 101, total probable cases 158 and total confirmed cases at 101". The report indicated that there have been 47 cases of health workers infected with Ebola in the country, of which 28 have died.

"Ebola now has been blamed for 729 deaths in four West African countries this year: 339 in Guinea, 233 in Sierra Leone, 156 in Liberia and one in Nigeria." Authorities in Sierra Leone vowed to quarantine at home all those who refuse to go to treatment centers. Health workers will be conducting house-to-house inspections in Freetown looking for patients.

"World Health Organization chief Margaret Chan told the presidents of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone at a meeting in Conakry...'This outbreak is moving faster than our efforts to control it. If the situation continues to deteriorate, the consequences can be catastrophic in terms of lost lives but also severe socioeconomic disruption and a high risk of spread to other countries'."

"According to the UN health agency as of 30 July 2014, the cumulative number of cases attributed to EVD in the four countries (Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Nigeria) stands at 1,440 including 826 deaths."

"Dr Kent Brantly touched down in Atlanta, Georgia, on Saturday to receive specialist care at Emory University Hospital after contracting the deadly disease, which has killed more than 700 people in west Africa. Missionary Dr Brantly, who became infected in Liberia, will be joined by fellow aid worker Nancy Writebol, 59, in a few days. Both are thought to be in a critical condition and will be admitted to an isolation unit for infectious diseases, in a hospital reportedly well equipped to deal with dangerous viruses."

"An elderly woman who died shortly after arriving in the UK from West Africa has tested negative for the Ebola virus. The woman, thought to be in her early 70s, arrived at Gatwick Airport on a Gambia Bird flight from The Gambia and health officials said she was tested for the deadly virus that has struck in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia."

"Hundreds of troops deployed in Sierra Leone and Liberia...to quarantine communities hit by the deadly Ebola virus, as the death toll from the worst-ever outbreak reached 887 and three new cases were reported in Nigeria."

"A total of 268 people had died of the virus as of August 2, said Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services Tolbert Nyenswah. On July 28, the Health Ministry had recorded 181 deaths, a week earlier 130 deaths. Among the dead were 37 health workers"

"Grand Bassa County Superintendent Etweda Cooper said the first case of Ebola has been reported in the county. Speaking over the weekend in Buchanan, Madam Cooper said an unidentified man died at the Catholic Health Center in Buchanan and was buried on Thursday. She added that his blood sample was taken to the laboratory and was tested and confirmed positive the next day."

"She added that the two health workers that came in contact with this man at the Catholic Health Center are currently undergoing observation at medical facilities in Buchanan."

"Nigerian health authorities acknowledged Tuesday that they did not immediately quarantine a sick airline passenger who later died of Ebola, announcing that eight health workers who had direct contact with him were now in isolation with symptoms of the disease."

"A doctor who cared for Sawyer has tested positive for the disease, and seven other health workers are now showing symptoms so have been placed in isolation. They are among 14 people who had "serious direct contact" with Sawyer, most of them at the hospital, Idris said. Authorities say they are also following the conditions of 56 other people who had "primary contact" with Sawyer — presumably less at risk than those in the first group."

"A Nigerian nurse became the second person to die of the Ebola virus in Africa’s most populous nation, Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said, while officials suspected a patient died of the disease in Saudi Arabia."

"The Nigerian health worker, who died yesterday, had helped treat Liberian Patrick Sawyer, who fell ill from the virus after arriving on a flight to Lagos, the commercial capital. He was taken to a hospital in the city and died five days later on July 25."

"Nigeria has five other confirmed cases of Ebola in Lagos, a city of about 20 million people, Chukwu said in a statement handed to reporters today in Abuja, the capital of Africa’s biggest economy."

"... Emergency Committee meeting to ascertain whether the ongoing Ebola outbreak in West Africa constitutes a 'public health emergency of international concern'...This is the first time the WHO Emergency Committee is being convened to deliberate on the Ebola Virus."

"Liberia's president has declared a state of emergency in the West African nation amid an Ebola outbreak that shows no signs of slowing. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf made the announcement on national television late Wednesday, saying that some civil rights may have to be suspended as a result of the crisis."

"Police and soldiers in Sierra Leone blockaded rural areas hit by the deadly Ebola virus on Thursday, a senior officer said, after neighbouring Liberia declared a state of emergency to tackle the worst-ever outbreak of the disease, which has killed 932 people."

"In eastern Sierra Leone — the worst-hit area of the country — the head of police said security forces deployed last night "to establish a complete blockade" of Kenema and Kailahun districts, setting up 16 checkpoints on major roads. "No vehicles or persons are allowed into or out of the districts," Alfred Karrow-Kamara told Reuters, saying the measures would last for an initial 50-day period. He said traders who had registered with security agencies would be able to bring in food and medicines. Security forces would mount foot patrols to ensure civilians did not slip past their roadblocks through the bush."

"The World Health Organization has declared the Ebola outbreak in West Africa to be an international public health emergency that requires an extraordinary response to stop its spread. On Friday, WHO announced the Ebola outbreak — the largest and longest in history — is worrying enough to merit being declared an international health emergency. WHO declared similar emergencies for the swine flu pandemic in 2009 and for polio in May. This agency had convened an expert committee this week to assess the severity of the ongoing epidemic in West Africa. The current outbreak of Ebola began in Guinea in March and has since spread to Sierra Leone and Liberia. There is no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola and the death rate has been about 50 percent."

"Guinea announced the closure of its borders with Sierra Leone and Liberia on Saturday in a bid to halt the spread of Ebola, a virus that has killed nearly 1,000 people in the three countries this year.
"We have provisionally closed the frontier between Guinea and Sierra Leone because of all the news that we have received from there recently," Health Minister Rémy Lamah told a news conference, noting that Guinea had also closed its border with Liberia."

"Researchers have revealed the Ebola outbreak currently sweeping across West Africa may have begun with the death of a two-year-old boy in December. The team of contagious disease experts traced the outbreak to the village of Guéckédou in Guinea, where a toddler died after falling ill with Ebola-like symptoms. A week after the child’s death on December 6, several members of his family including his mother and grandmother also fell ill and died."

"A male passenger, who landed in Chennai from Guinea on Saturday night, has been kept under observation for suspected case of Ebola. Senior officials in the health department said the man, hailing from Theni district of Tamil Nadu, approached the health facility at the airport and asked to be checked."

Nigeria's Minister of State for Health, Dr. Khalliru Alhassan says that the "federal government has banned movement of corpses from one state of the federation to another until there a noticeable reduction in the spread of the disease."

"According to the Minister, all dead bodies would be buried wherever they die so that the chances of transporting the disease either from within or outside would be curtailed."

"The Government of Liberia (GoL) has deployed soldiers of the Armed Forces of Liberia(AFL) in Bomi County, one of the four counties the government had declared a no go area. In an effort to combat the fast growing Ebola virus in the country, the government declared Lofa, Bong, Bomi and Grand Cape Mount Counties as no go area. Liberia's Information Minister Lewis G. Brown said the four counties, including Montserrado County had been identified as "intensively" affected areas by the virus."

"A 31-year-old man from Mumbai who has returned from Nigeria is suspected to be infected with the deadly Ebola vius, the worst outbreak of which is raging in four countries in West Africa. The man, who was in Nigeria for some work, returned to Mumbai from West Africa after the Ebola outbreak. But soon afterwards, he began experiencing body pains and diarrhoea, and got in touch with the Health Department. "

"Mauritanian authorities on Sunday decided to deny entry to citizens from African countries hit by Ebola to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. In a statement, the Health Ministry said the decision applies to the citizens of Liberia and Seirra Leone. Mauritania stepped up health checks at its border with Senegal and Mali, a Mauritanian health ministry official said, but so far no suspicious cases had been detected."

"The Ivory Coast announced Monday that it has banned all flights from countries hit by the deadly Ebola virus. The government said in a statement that it has banned all carriers from transporting passengers from these countries. It has also suspended flights by its national airline to and from these locations."

"U.S. President Barack Obama and the Food and Drug Administration have approved a request from Liberia's government to send sample doses of an experimental drug to treat Liberian doctors infected with Ebola, the Liberian presidency said in a statement. The statement, posted on the Liberian presidency's official website, said the experimental drugs would be delivered to the West African country this week by a representative of the U.S. government, following a direct appeal to Obama on Friday by Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf."

"Margaret Chan, the head of the World Health Organization, has also authorised the dispatch of additional doses of the experimental drug to Liberia to support the treatment of affected doctors, the statement said. Those doses will be delivered by a WHO expert this week."

"Liberia will receive enough of an experimental Ebola drug to treat just two infected Liberian doctors, Information Minister Lewis Brown said, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved its export. Brown said Liberia's Health Ministry had contacted the U.S. manufacturer of ZMapp, Mapp Biopharmaceutical, and asked the FDA to quickly approve its export. The doctors had consented in writing to the treatment, the minister said."

"Guinea-Bissau is closing its border with Guinea, one of the west African countries hardest hit by the deadly Ebola virus, Prime Minister Domingos Simoes Pereira said Tuesday, cited by AFP. "In light of information provided by the health ministry and after a series of consultations, the government of Guinea-Bissau has decided to close its southern and eastern borders" with Guinea "until further notice," Pereira told a press conference."

"The Economic Community of West African States, ECOWAS, announced today the death of Jatto Abdulqudir, a member of its staff, from the Ebola virus. Abdulqudir is the third person in Nigeria to die of the disease, following the initial Liberian case, Patrick Sawyer, and a nurse who attended to him after he collapsed in Lagos."

"Officials from the Health Ministry have said that two Nigerian passengers, who were put under medical supervision at the İstanbul Atatürk Airport on suspicions that they have the Ebola virus, are suffering from malaria. The officials added that whether the passengers have the Ebola virus has not yet been determined, but the passengers are still being medically examined. A female passenger and her child from a Turkish Airlines (THY) flight traveling from Lagos, Nigeria, to İstanbul on Tuesday morning were put under medical supervision at İstanbul Atatürk Airport after they showed symptoms of fever and vomiting."

"Sidie Yayah Tunis, director of communications for the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, announced that Modupeh Cole died Wednesday. The U.S.-trained Cole was one of the lead doctors working in the Ebola isolation ward in Connaught Hospital in Freetown, the capital."

"The Federal Government on Wednesday said a total of 198 persons are currently being quarantined for the Ebola Virus Disease. It said while 177 are being quarantined in Lagos where the index case was reported, 21 persons are being attended to in Enugu."

"Maku said Enugu came into the picture because one of the nurses that treated the American-Liberian, Patrick Sawyer, who brought the virus to the country disobeyed medical advice and travelled to Enugu. He said all those the nurse had contacts with, including her husband, are currently being quarantined."

"Guinean President Alpha Conde late on Wednesday declared a national health emergency over Ebola virus outbreak, according to Agence France-Presse. "The World Health Organisation has declared a global health emergency over Ebola. Considering that Guinea is a signatory to the WHO constitution I declare Ebola a national health emergency in Guinea," Conde said in a statement."

"Nigerian Minister for Health, Professor Onyebuchi Chukwu has confirmed that the Lagos nurse who travelled to Enugu against medical advice is now back in Lagos and is under quarantine with her husband. The suspect, identified as a nurse, said to have travelled to her home town to visit her family, is now under surveillance with 20 others she came into contact with in the city."

Nigeria's Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu gave a news briefing on the Ebola outbreak: " 'Nigeria has now recorded 10 confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD). Out of these, four have died and eight are currently under treatment. It is important to note that the number of confirmed cases remains 10 as at today and not 11 as earlier announced this morning.' ... The fourth death recorded today was a Nigerian nurse who participated in the initial management of the index case. 'The total number of persons under surveillance in Lagos is now 169. These are all secondary contacts as all the primary contacts have completed the 21-day incubation period and have been delisted to resume their normal lives.' "

"Health Minister James Macharia said Kenya is closing its borders to travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the countries most affected by the worst-ever Ebola outbreak. National carrier Kenya Airways also said it would suspend its flights to Freetown and Monrovia when the ban takes effect on Wednesday."

"At least 29 ebola patients have reportedly fled a treatment centre in Liberia after it was attacked by armed men. "They broke down the doors and looted the place. The patients all fled," Rebecca Wesseh, who witnessed the attack, told AFP news agency. Local residents and the head of Health Workers Association of Liberia confirmed the attack had taken place."

"Seventeen Ebola patients are missing after fleeing an attack on an isolation ward in Monrovia by armed youths claiming the epidemic does not exist, training the spotlight on the struggle to raise awareness in the fight against the deadly virus."

"The head of Health Workers Association of Liberia, George Williams, said the unit housed 29 patients who "had all tested positive for Ebola" and were receiving preliminary treatment before being taken to hospital. "Of the 29 patients, 17 fled last night (after the assault). Nine died four days ago and three others were yesterday taken by force by their relatives" from the centre, he said. "

"Cameroon has closed all its land, sea and air borders with Nigeria in a move to help prevent the spread of the Ebola virus...No cases of Ebola have been recorded so far in Cameroon which shares a nearly 2,000-kilometre-long (1,240-mile) border with Nigeria, where the virus has claimed four lives with about a dozen people infected."

"Seventeen suspected Ebola patients who went missing in Liberia after a health centre in the capital was attacked have been found, a minister has said. The BBC reports: 'They were traced and finally they turned themselves in' at a treatment centre, Lewis Brown, an information minister, told the BBC. The government had previously denied they were missing...The Liberian information minister said the missing patients were now at the newly expanded treatment unit opened over the weekend at the John F Kennedy Memorial Medical Center in the capital, Monrovia. Mr Brown also said the health of three Liberian doctors infected with Ebola had improved after they receiving the experimental drug Zmapp."

"More than 1,200 people have died of Ebola in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria in the current outbreak, and more than 2,200 have been sickened, the WHO said...The WHO said it is seeing some encouraging signs in other parts of West Africa. In Guinea, people from villages that had previously rejected outside help were beginning to seek medical care, according to a WHO statement. The statement said the situation is 'less alarming' in Guinea than in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Although the outbreak began in Guinea, Liberia has now recorded the highest number of deaths and Sierra Leone the most cases. The WHO also said there is 'cautious optimism' that the spread of the virus in Nigeria can be stopped. So far, all recorded cases have been linked to one man, who flew from Liberia to Nigeria while infected."

"Liberia's president declared a curfew and ordered security forces to quarantine a slum in Monrovia that is home to at least 50,000 people late Tuesday as the West African country battled to stop the spread of Ebola in the capital. Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf announced a curfew from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. Security forces also will be ensuring that no one enters or leaves West Point, a slum in the capital where angry residents attacked an Ebola observation center over the weekend. Johnson-Sirleaf declared a state of emergency early this month. 'We have been unable to control the spread due to continued denials, cultural burying practices, disregard for the advice of health workers and disrespect for the warnings by the government,' she said. 'As a result and due to the large population concentration the disease has spread widely in Monrovia and environs.' 'May God bless us all and save the state' ."

"Nigeria's toll from Ebola hit five as another death was reported, according to the local newspaper Vanguard...Nigerian doctor Ameyo Stella Adadevoh contracted the virus while treating Liberian government consultant Patrick Sawyer"

"The outbreak need never have spread from Guinea, health officials told AFP, except for a herbalist in the remote eastern border village of Sokoma. 'She was claiming to have powers to heal Ebola. People from Guinea were crossing into Sierra Leone for treatment,' Mohamed Vandi, the top medical official in the hard-hit district of Kenema, told AFP. 'She got infected and died. During her funeral, women around the other towns also got infected'."

"Onyebuchi Chukwu Nigeria’s Minister of Health has said the nation may be free of Ebola within a week as the number of people being treated for the virus dropped to two. 'It will be a matter of maybe one week’s time because we have only two cases now of Ebola virus disease and both of them are in an isolation ward,' ... The country has enough equipment to contain the outbreak, Chukwu said."

"At least 70 people have died in northern Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of hemorrhagic gastroenteritis, the World Health Organization said on Thursday, denying that the illness was Ebola. A WHO report dated Thursday and seen by Reuters said that 592 people had contracted the disease, of whom 70 died. Five health care workers, including one doctor, are among the dead."

"As Liberia struggles to contain the outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus which is new to the country, a former Liberian diplomat to France, the People's Republic of China, the United Nations, Cuba, other countries, says it is time that the Government of Liberia turns over full executive control of international efforts to fight Ebola to the international partners who have come to assist in fighting the scourge."

"Senegal closed its borders with Guinea on Thursday over fears of the Ebola epidemic, more than three months after it re-opened them, said a statement from the interior ministry. 'Senegal has decided to once again close the land borders with the Republic of Guinea," the statement said, adding that this extends to "air and sea borders for aircraft and ships from the Republic of Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia'."

"Two alarming new cases of Ebola have emerged in Nigeria, widening the circle of people sickened beyond the immediate group of caregivers who treated a dying airline passenger in one of Africa's largest cities...Nigeria's total of confirmed infections is now 16. Five of them have died and five have recovered; the rest are being treated in isolation in Lagos, the commercial capital where Sawyer's flight landed."

"Every region of Liberia has now been hit by Ebola, officials said Friday, as other affected west African nations scrambled to contain the spread of the killer virus. After seeing people fall to the deadly disease in area after area, Liberia said two people had succumbed to the virus in Sinoe province, the last Ebola free bastion in a country that has seen the biggest toll with 576 deaths."

"Families hiding infected loved ones and the existence of 'shadow zones' where medics cannot go mean the West African Ebola epidemic is even bigger than thought, the World Health Organization said on Friday."

"'We think six to nine months is a reasonable estimate,' Keiji Fukuda, the WHO's Assistant Director-General for Health Security, said during a visit to Liberia, speaking of the time the agency now believes will be required to halt the epidemic."

"Regional humanitarian hub Senegal said on Friday it had blocked a regional U.N. aid plane from landing and was banning all further flights to and from countries affected by Ebola, potentially hampering the emergency response to the epidemic."

"Chad closed its border with Nigeria and South Africa said it was banning all travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone from entering its territory, barring its own citizens."

"Ivory Coast has closed its land borders with Ebola-affected West African neighbors Guinea and Liberia."

"'Faced with new outbreak sites and the reactivation of old sites ... the Ivorian government decides to close its land borders with sister republics Guinea and Liberia,' said a statement read on state-owned television late on Friday."

David Nabarro, Senior United Nations System Coordinator for Ebola stated that the UN is looking to significantly scale up their response to the outbreak.

"In parts of Liberia, WHO said, a phenomenon is occurring that has never before been seen in an Ebola outbreak. As soon as a new treatment facility is opened, it is immediately filled with patients, many of whom were not previously identified."

"'This phenomenon strongly suggests the existence of an invisible caseload of patients who are not being detected by the surveillance system,' the UN health agency said."

"WHO reiterated that it does not recommend any ban on international travel or trade. It stresses that closing borders doesn’t work and is detrimental, as affected countries will be pushed towards a humanitarian crisis and the international community’s ability to fight and reverse the Ebola outbreak will be hampered."

"Sierra Leone has passed a new law imposing possible jail time for anyone caught hiding an Ebola patient — a common practice that the World Health Organization believes has contributed to a major underestimation of the current outbreak."

Lawmaker, Ansumana Jaiah Kaikai said "the measure was necessary to compel residents to cooperate with government officials, noting that some residents had resisted steps to combat Ebola and build isolation centers in their communities."

"The Democratic Republic of Congo on Sunday confirmed its first two cases this year of Ebola but claimed they were unrelated to the epidemic ravaging West Africa. 'The results are positive. The Ebola virus is confirmed in DRC,' Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi told AFP"

"Earlier this week Kabange had announced the deaths of 13 people with haemorrhagic symptoms, and had said dozens of others who had come into contact with them were being monitored."

"An expert from the World Health Organization, operating in Sierra Leone to fight against the Ebola epidemic, contracted the deadly virus, according to a statement released on Sunday by the WHO. According to a spokesman for the WHO in Geneva, the person in question is an expert in epidemiology. This is the first time, the WHO added, that a member of its teams on the field is infected with the virus. The person 'is receiving the best possible treatment,' and an evacuation to another clinic is being considered."

"Nigeria's health minister said on Tuesday authorities had 'thus far contained' the Ebola outbreak that started last month, with only one out of 13 confirmed cases still being treated in isolation in the commercial capital Lagos. Onyebuchi Chukwu said of the other cases that five had died and the other seven had been discharged. The remaining one was the spouse of one of the doctors who treated Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian who brought the virus to Africa's most populous nation."

"A total of 13 people, including five health workers, have now died from Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a report by the UN. The government has said it will be quarantining the area around the town of Djera, in the northwestern jungle province of Equateur, where a high number of suspected cases has been reported."

"The Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,552 people out of 3,069 known cases in four countries and 'continues to accelerate', the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Thursday. The epidemic in the region, the deadliest since the disease was first discovered in 1976, has killed nearly as many people as all the previous known outbreaks combined. 'More than 40 percent of the total number of cases have occurred within the past 21 days. However, most cases are concentrated in only a few localities,' the United Nations health agency said in a statement."

"The Ebola outbreak in West Africa could eventually exceed 20,000 cases - more than six times the current level, the World Health Organisation says. SHARE A new study by the UN health agency also assumes that in many hard-hit areas the actual number of cases may be two to four times higher than is currently reported."

"At least 40% of the cases have been in the last three weeks, the WHO said, adding that 'the outbreak continues to accelerate'."

"The unnamed doctor, according to news website, Sahara Reporters, secretly treated a diplomat who had contact with Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian-American, who brought the virus to Nigeria. The doctor reportedly died on Friday, while his wife had also taken ill and now quarantined in Port Harcourt. The diplomat treated by the doctor is still alive, the report said. The diplomat is believed to be among those who met Mr. Sawyer on his arrival in Lagos. He then flew to Port Harcourt where he took ill. He was treated at an unnamed hotel in the Rivers state capital, an official said."

"This development, if confirmed will be a big blow to Nigeria’s effort to contain the deadly virus. With only one case being treated in Lagos, the Minister of Health had declared Tuesday that Nigeria had succeeded in checkmating the spread of the virus in the country."

"The first case of Ebola has been confirmed in Senegal, a major hub for the business and aid community in West Africa, Health Minister Awa Marie Coll Seck told a news conference on Friday. The minister said the case was a Guinean national who had arrived from the neighbouring West African country, where the deadly virus was first detected in March."

"Riots broke out in Guinea's second-largest city Nzerekore over rumours that health workers had infected people with the deadly Ebola virus, a Red Cross official and residents said on Friday. A crowd of young men, some armed with clubs and pistols, set up barricades across the southern city on Thursday and threatened to attack the hospital before security forces moved in to restore order. Gunshots were fired by the rioters and several people were injured, said Youssouf Traore, president of the Guinean Red Cross."

"Liberia says it will open up a slum in its capital where thousands of people were barricaded to contain the spread of Ebola. Information Minister Lewis Brown says lifting the quarantine Saturday morning will not mean there is no Ebola in the West Point Slum. But authorities feel confident they can screen for the sick and that the community now actively fighting the disease. The slum of 50,000 people in Liberia's capital was sealed off more than a week ago, sparking unrest and leaving many without access to food or safe water."

"Health workers have gone on strike at a major Ebola treatment centre in Kenema, eastern Sierra Leone, over pay and poor working conditions, hospital staff told Reuters on Saturday. 'The workers decided to stop working because we have not been paid out allowances and we lack some tools,' said Ishmael Mehemoh, chief supervisor at the clinic. Clothing to protect health workers being infected from the deadly virus is inadequate and there is only one broken stretcher which is used to carry both patients and corpses, he added."

"The latest data released by Guinea's health ministry shows that at least 690 Ebola cases have been confirmed in the country, out of which 460 people have died."

"A total of 143 patients were cured and discharged from treatment centers while 86 cases are still undergoing treatment in health centers. Since the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, 45 health workers have been infected with the virus and 26 of them have died while nine others are still hospitalized."

"One of the three persons taken to the Ebola virus quarantine centre in Oduoha, Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, has tested positive for the disease. The latest case, an elderly woman, contracted the virus in Good Heart Hospital, the health facility where Iyke Enemuo, the doctor who treated a Nigerian ECOWAS diplomat, Koye Olu-Ibukun, died last week."

"According to him, as of August 31, 2014, the total number of cases of EVD in Nigeria stood at 17 while the total number of cases treated at the isolation ward in Lagos State is 14. Also, the total number of those discharged is seven while the total number of deaths among those treated in Lagos is five. The total number currently under treatment in Lagos is two. Chukwu said the three confirmed cases not treated in Lagos comprised Olu-Ibukun, Enemuo and the elderly woman in Port Harcourt."

"Nurses at Liberia's largest hospital went on strike on Monday, demanding better pay and equipment to protect them against a deadly Ebola epidemic which has killed hundreds in the West African nation. John Tugbeh, spokesman for the strikers at Monrovia's John F Kennedy hospital, said the nurses would not return to work until they are supplied with "personal protective equipment (PPEs)", the hazmat-style suits which guard against infectious diseases. 'From the beginning of the Ebola outbreak we have not had any protective equipment to work with. As result, so many doctors got infected by the virus. We have to stay home until we get the PPEs,' he said."

"Senegalese authorities on Monday were monitoring everyone who was in contact with a student infected with Ebola who crossed into the country, and who has lost three family members to the disease. An Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 1,500 people in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria. The university student is Senegal's first case of the dreaded disease. The 21-year-old left Guinea on Aug. 15, just days after his brother died of the disease, according to Guinea's Health Ministry. It said that the brother apparently caught Ebola in Sierra Leone. The student travelled by road, crossing into Senegal despite a border closure. He arrived in Dakar, the Senegalese capital, on Aug. 20, according to the World Health Organization, and was staying with relatives on the outskirts of the city. The agency said that on Aug. 23, he went to a medical facility seeking treatment for fever, diarrhea and vomiting -- all symptoms of Ebola but also many other diseases. But he concealed from doctors that he had had contact with infected people. He was treated instead for malaria and continued to stay with his relatives before turning up at a Dakar hospital on Aug. 26. Senegal's Health Ministry said Sunday that it has since traced everyone the student came into contact with, and they are being examined twice a day."

Death toll from an Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DR Cong) has increased from 13 to 31, an advisor to the minister of health said Tuesday. 'The official account was 13 deaths, and then we add the 18 deaths, giving us a total of 31 deaths,' said Dr. Shodu Lomani to Xinhua. The Ebola outbreak was recorded in Djera, a remote region in the country's northwest province of Equateur. The government has banned travels out of the affected region by any one who may show signs of the Ebola virus disease, said Lomani. It was the DR Congo's seventh Ebola outbreak, which the government and the World Health Organization (WHO) said has no links with the ongoing Ebola epidemic in West Africa."

"The sister of late Dr Iyke Enemuo who died of the Ebola virus in Port Harcourt has been sent to the Ebola quarantine centre in Emohua local government area, Rivers state. Rivers State Commissioner of Health, Dr Sampson Parker who made this known Monday said she had to be sent there because she showed symptoms of the disease, adding that result of the Ebola test done on her would be released later in the day."

Dr. Sampson Parker went on to say: "'Sister of Dr Iyke Enemuo who went to Abia State, we have brought her back. She is symptomanic and we have sent her to the quarantined centre. The three cases we had at the quarantine centre, two tested negative while one, an elderly lady who was in the same room with the late Dr Enemuo at the hospital where he was admitted tested positive. The two cases who tested negative were the doctor and Pharmacist at the late Dr Enemuo hospital. They have Left the quarantine centre but we are still watching them within the 21 days period.',"

"Nigeria will soon get a Japanese drug to treat Ebola, the country’s Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said on Monday. The drug named Favipiravir and developed by a subsidiary of Fujifilm Holdings in Japan, could be delivered anytime soon in Nigeria, Xinhua quoted Chukwu as telling reporters here. Apart from the Japanese drug, the west African country had also applied for another anti-Ebola drug alongside two other vaccines which have been positively identified by the local Treatment Research Group (TRG) in Nigeria. 'The TRG has been working hard to identify experimental drugs like Zmapp, and also make recommendations to government on further research on these drugs as well as vaccines for EVD treatment and prevention,' Chukwu said. The Nigerian minister said the drug was considered as it has strong anti-viral property against Ebola virus in-vitro and in-vivo. 'These and the fact that it is considered safe, having passed through phases one and two clinical trails makes it good candidate drug for use in emergency situation as the EVD,' he added."

"Disruptions in food trade and marketing in the three West African countries most affected by Ebola have made food increasingly expensive and hard to come by, while labor shortages are putting the upcoming harvest season at serious risk, FAO warned today. In Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, quarantine zones and restrictions on people's movement aimed at combating the spread of the virus, although necessary, have seriously curtailed the movement and marketing of food. This has lead to panic buying, food shortages and significant food price hikes on some commodities, especially in urban centers, according to a special alert issued today by FAO's Global Information and Early Warning System (GIEWS)."

"The CDC director said it was upsetting during his visit to see the shortage of hospital beds and the lack of a rapid response needed to prevent a single cluster of Ebola from becoming a large outbreak. There is widespread transmission in Liberia and strong signs it will happen in Sierra Leone in the near future, he said. 'World is losing the battle' Frieden said more resources, expertise and a unified response are needed. 'The number of cases is increasing so quickly that for every day's delay it becomes that much harder to stop it'."

"In a speech to the United Nations on Tuesday, Dr. Joanne Liu, international president of Doctors Without Borders, denounced the lack of deployment of resources to address the outbreak, which the group says has overstretched ministries of health and private non-governmental organizations. 'Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it' "

"A third American missionary has been infected with Ebola while working in Liberia and is being treated in an isolation unit in the Monrovia hospital where he works. The man, a doctor, was treating obstetrics patients, not Ebola patients. He is the second missionary working for SIM USA, a Charlotte, N.C.-based Christian organization, to contract the deadly disease. It isn't known how the doctor was infected, SIM USA said in a statement Tuesday. He isolated himself as soon as he felt symptoms and "is doing well and is in good spirits," the organization said."

"The Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), Idi Araba, was thrown into panic yesterday, following the admission of two patients suspected to be infected with the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) into the hospital. One of the patients later died after reportedly showing symptoms of the deadly disease."

"Results from virus characterization, together with findings from the epidemiological investigation, are definitive: the outbreak in DRC is a distinct and independent event, with no relationship to the outbreak in west Africa."

"The response team has, to date, identified 53 cases consistent with the case definition for Ebola virus disease, including 31 deaths. Seven of these deaths were among health care workers. More than 160 contacts are being traced."

"The 19-year old law student of the Ahmadu Bello University [ABU] suspected to manifest some symptoms of the Ebola Virus Disease [EVD] has tested negative to the virus. Authorities of ABU and the Kaduna State Government had sent the patient’s blood to Lagos for testing after he reportedly manifested some symptoms associated with Ebola while on admission at the Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital [ABUTH]."

"Nigeria now has 18 Ebola cases, after a fourth case surfaced in Port Harcourt, home to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, the health minister said on Wednesday. The Ebola outbreak in Africa's most populous country began on July 20 when a Liberian man with the disease collapsed at Lagos airport, spreading the virus to the hospital staff who treated him. A man who had travelled with him then skipped quarantine and travelled to Port Harcourt, bringing the disease there. A doctor died in the oil city last week. Health Minister Onyebuchi Chukwu said a patient he had treated had also now died. A total of 255 people were under surveillance in Port Harcourt, while 41 were in Lagos."

"Guinea's government said on Wednesday that Ebola had spread to a previously unaffected region of the country, as U.S. experts warned that the worst ever outbreak of the deadly virus was spiralling out of control in West Africa. Guinea, the first country to detect the haemorrhagic fever in March, had said it was containing the outbreak but authorities announced that nine new cases had been found in the southeastern prefecture of Kerouane. The area, some 750 km (470 miles) southeast of the capital Conakry, lies close to where the virus was first detected deep in Guinea's forest region."

Nigerian Commisioner for Health, Mr. Okechukwu Ogah said that the Abia State Government will "'work with neighbouring states to track down the 50 people that were said to have fled from Rivers State and put them on surveillance. We need to work together to rid Nigeria of Ebola; and if there is anybody hiding in Abia we will ask for their names and announce them on air for the public to help us track them.'"

"Total number of confirmed cases of Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria is now eighteen (18). The 18th confirmed case is the sister of the late Port Harcourt doctor."

"Total number of cases successfully managed and discharged is now eight (8). The last case to be discharged, the first secondary contact to be diagnosed and a spouse of a primary contact of the index case, went home from the isolation ward in Lagos yesterday. (The 9th survivor is the ECOWAS Commission official who jumped surveillance in Lagos and travelled to Port Harcourt where he infected the doctor who attended to him)."

"Total number of deaths from Ebola Virus Disease in Nigeria is now seven (7). One (1), the index case, occurred in a private hospital in Lagos, four (4) in the Lagos isolation ward, one (1) in the Port Harcourt isolation ward (the female patient who was on admission in the same hospital where the late Port Harcourt doctor was also admitted), while another one (1) was the doctor who was infected by the ECOWAS Commission official in Port Harcourt and who did not come under the care and management of the Incident Management Committee."

"Total number of EVD patients currently under treatment is two (2), one in the Lagos isolation ward and another one (1) in the Port Harcourt isolation ward."

"Total number of contacts currently under surveillance in Lagos is forty one (41), while Port Harcourt has two hundred and fifty five (255)."

"Total number of contacts discharged in Lagos after they were observed for 21 days is 320. The minister also debunked rumours of EVD cases outside Lagos and Port Harcourt. These include the three (3) reported cases in the Federal Capital Territory and one case in Calabar."

"A Nigerian doctor with Ebola carried on treating patients and met scores of friends, relatives and medics before his death, leaving about 60 of them at high risk of infection, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says. The doctor, who has not been named, operated on two patients, according to the WHO."

"The doctor, whom the WHO did not name, was infected by a man who fled quarantine in Lagos, who was himself linked to the first case in Africa's most populous country, a Liberian man who sought treatment in Lagos. Doctor with Ebola operated on two patients: WHO The doctor's wife and one of his patients had since caught the deadly disease and 200 people who came into contact with him were being monitored for symptoms including fever and muscle pain, followed by vomiting and diarrhoea, the WHO said. Of these, around 60 are considered to have had high-risk or very high-risk exposure, it said. Two days after developing the symptoms on August 11, he went on treating patients at his private clinic and operated on two of them, the WHO statement said. 'Prior to hospitalisation, the physician had numerous contacts with the community, as relatives and friends visited his home to celebrate the birth of a baby,'"

"An Ebola outbreak in Nigeria's oil producing hub of Port Harcourt could spread wider and faster than in the financial capital, Lagos, the World Health Organization warned on Thursday (Sep 4). The UN health body said the virus' arrival in Port Harcourt, 435 kilometres (270 miles) east of Lagos and home to oil and gas majors such as Shell, Total and Chevron, showed 'multiple high-risk opportunities for transmission of the virus to others'. Of the 255 people currently under surveillance for signs of the disease, the WHO said 60 were considered to have had 'high-risk or very high-risk exposure'."

"According to the Ministry of Health and Sanitation's Wednesday update, 1,146 cases have been reported and 399 people have died. Over 80 per cent of those who have died are from Kenema and Kailahun districts."

"The Liberian health ministry says cumulative suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola cases for the period May 29 to September 1 now stands at 1,763."

"According to the report, the total number of patients discharged as of September 1 remains at 25. At the same time, Liberia’s case fatality rate in confirmed and probable Ebola incidence stands at 61.5 percent. Case fatality rate is the proportion of deaths within a designated population of cases over the course of a prevailing disease."

"Patients as well as visitors and workers deserted the Federal Medical Centre, Asaba, Delta State capital [Nigeria] on Thursday, following the rushing to the hospital of a suspected patient who manifested symptoms of the dreaded Ebola Virus."

"After convening a two-day meeting of more than 200 experts to figure out which experimental Ebola treatments should be used first, the WHO said survivor's blood could be used immediately, tapping into the thousands of people who have survived the virus which has about a 50 percent death rate and no licensed treatments. 'We have to change the sense that there is no hope,' Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, a WHO assistant director-general, said during a press conference on Friday. The evidence for whether blood from survivors can help Ebola patients is mixed."

"Though Ebola clinics in West Africa are understaffed and often lack basic supplies, some said it is theoretically possible to offer the blood of survivors now. Experts believe the antibodies in the blood of people who have survived Ebola might help other patients stave off the virus long enough for their own immune systems to respond."

"Delta State government has debunked story making the rounds that a patient died of Ebola disease in the state at the Eku Specialist Hospital, Eku. In a statement by Chike Ogeah, Delta commissioner for information, he said the story is completely false, noting that a diabetic woman who had earlier been undergoing treatment at Eku Specialist Hospital returned from a visit to Port Harcourt and reported at the hospital where she unfortunately died."

"The state government thereby assured all residents that there is no Ebola patient in the state."

"Sierra Leone will impose a four-day, countrywide "lockdown" starting Sept. 18, an escalation of efforts to halt the spread of Ebola across the West African nation, a senior official in the president's office said on Friday. Citizens will not be allowed to leave their homes between Sept. 18-21 in a bid to prevent the disease from spreading further and allow health workers to identify cases in the early stages of the illness, said Ibrahim Ben Kargbo, a presidential advisor on the country's Ebola task force. 'The aggressive approach is necessary to deal with the spread of Ebola once and for all,' he told Reuters."

"The death toll in the Ebola outbreak in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone totaled 2,097 as at Sept 5, out of 3,944 cases. A further eight people have died in Nigeria and there is 1 confirmed case in Senegal. That puts the death toll at a total of 2,105 and the number of patients infected so far at 3,968."

"The deadly Ebola virus has claimed the lives of 134 health workers in West Africa, mostly doctors and nurses, World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said Friday. The total number of infected health workers is as high as 256, he said, while stressing the need to bolster the already inadequate number of medical personnel in the countries hit by the virus, which has a high mortality rate."

"Sierra Leone's proposed countrywide "lockdown" will not help control an Ebola outbreak and could lead to the disease spreading further as cases are concealed, medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday."

"'It has been our experience that lockdowns and quarantines do not help control Ebola as they end up driving people underground and jeopardizing the trust between people and health providers,' said the group. 'This leads to the concealment of potential cases and ends up spreading the disease further,' added the group which has been helping fight the world's biggest outbreak of the disease across West Africa."

"Sierra Leone's deputy information minister, Theo Nichol, said on Saturday the three-day shutdown would make it easier for medical workers to trace suspected cases. Nichol said the period may be extended if needed. A presidency official had earlier said the lockdown would last for four days. But MSF said door-to-door screening required a high level of expertise and, even when cases were found, there were a lack of treatment centres and other facilities to take them to."

"Saudi Arabia has no plan to ban some 70,000 Nigerian pilgrims from performing Haj this year because of Ebola virus cases that have surfaced in the West African country, a senior Saudi health official said."

"According to sources, one Police officer serving the Police Support Unit (PSU) contracted the virus and is currently undergoing treatment at the ELWA Ebola center. One senior Police source confirmed to FrontPageAfrica that the officer is in critical condition at the Ebola treatment center. The Police officer is said to have contracted the virus from his wife who is a nurse, who transferred the virus to her husband after also getting infested from work. The health of the PSU officer prompted the quarantining of Bloc C of the Police barracks where accordingly the 18 Police officers are residing."

"The governments of Sierra Leone and Liberia have begun to release regular updates on the number of Ebola cases and Ebola-related death in their nations. These reports provide data which is more current than that released by the World Health Organization. As of Sept. 7, Sierra Leone is reporting 1,409 suspected, probable and confirmed Ebola illnesses and 474 deaths. The latest report from Liberia on Sept. 6 shows 2,038 Ebola cases and 1,213 related deaths. Across the five countries in West Africa reporting Ebola cases, the total using the Sept. 5 WHO Ebola situation report, as well as the local reports, there have been 4,282 illnesses since the outbreak began in March and 2,212 Ebola deaths."

"Border closures, flight bans and mass quarantines are creating a sense of siege in the West African countries affected by Ebola, officials at an emergency African Union meeting said Monday, as Senegal agreed to allow humanitarian aid pass through its closed borders."

"The largest Ebola outbreak ever has killed more than 2,000 people and public health officials say it is out of control. But they have criticized some of the more extreme efforts to slow the disease's spread, saying that border closures have hampered the response by holding up shipments of aid. They have also noted that, in a highly mobile region like West Africa with several unofficial border crossings, closing frontiers is usually ineffective."

"The Ebola virus is spreading fast in Liberia, where many thousands of new cases are expected over the coming three weeks, the World Health Organisation said on Monday. 'Transmission of the Ebola virus in Liberia is already intense and the number of new cases is increasing exponentially,' WHO said in a statement. The organisation noted that motorbike-taxis and regular taxis are 'a hot source of potential virus transmission' because they are not disinfected in Liberia, where conventional Ebola control measures 'are not having an adequate impact'."

"Lagos has recorded yet another Ebola case, the Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu, disclosed today September 8, through his Special Assistant on Media and Communication, Dan Nwomeh. Dan took to twitter to share some of the statements the minister made during a press conference held earlier today. The new confirmed case is the fiance of one of the primary contacts of the index case, Patrick Sawyer. However, the primary contact had made a full recovery. Th​e new case brings the total number of Ebola cases in Nigeria to 19 with seven people dead from the disease while 10 others have recovered, the minister said. He noted that with the latest developments, the total number of people under surveillance in Lagos have reduced to 27 while Port Harcourt has 477."

"Attendees of an emergency meeting of the African Union (A.U.)'s executive council held to address Africa's recent Ebola outbreak have agreed to lift a ban on the cross-border movement of people among member states. 'We have agreed that countries allow people to move,' Ncosazana Dlamini-Zuma, chairperson of the A.U. Commission, told reporters on Monday. Meeting participants also recommended that member states put screening mechanisms in place as a means of containing the deadly virus. No timetable has been given, however, for lifting the ban on cross-border movement."

"The outbreak sweeping West Africa is thought to have killed more than 2,200 people, and public health experts agree that it is out of control. More than 4,200 people have believed to have been sickened in Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. The disease is spreading particularly quickly in Liberia, where new WHO figures showed that more than 500 new cases were recorded in a week."

"Sierra Leone has announced plans to visit every home in the country of six million to track down people with Ebola and remove dead bodies. More than 20,000 volunteers will go door-to-door as part of a three-day curfew announced on Saturday, Steven Ngaoja, the head of the country’s Ebola Emergency Operations Centre, told a news conference in Freetown. ‘From September 19 to 21, every household in the country will be visited. About 21,400 trained volunteers will be involved in the house-to-house sensitisation activity,’ Ngaoja said on Monday. ‘Likely Ebola cases will be identified or dead bodies will be referred to contact tracing, referral or burial teams.’"

"Liberia's national existence is "seriously threatened" by the deadly Ebola virus that is "spreading like wild fire and devouring everything in its path," the country's national defense minister told the United Nations Security Council on Tuesday. Liberia is worst hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic and will likely see thousands of new cases in coming weeks, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. More than 1,000 people have already died in Liberia. "Liberia is facing a serious threat to its national existence. The deadly Ebola virus has caused a disruption of the normal functioning of our State," said Liberian Minister of National Defense Brownie Samukai."

"The world's worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 2,296 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Senegalese authorities are still monitoring 67 people who came into contact with the Guinean student and trying to trace his route on the more than 1,000-km land journey across the border from southwest Guinea. Some 33 people have been placed under quarantine in the house in the teeming neighbourhood of Parcelles Assainies where he stayed with an uncle after arriving in Dakar in late August."

"The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that the Ebola death toll increased by 200 in just a day, bringing the total number of dead to at least 2,296. As of Sept. 6, 4,293 cases have been recorded in five West African nations. But the WHO is having trouble compiling data on cases, especially in the nation of Liberia, which health officials say is the worst affected country. The U.N. health organization said they expect thousands of new cases in Liberia in the next three weeks."

"Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Onyebuchi Chukwu on Wednesday said that there is no new cases of Ebola Virus Disease in the country as a Ile-ife case has been quarantined and being investigated. The minister in a press statement signed by his media aide Mr. Dan Nwomeh said the number of people under surveillance in Lagos had reduced drastically to 16 with 400 in Port Harcourt. He said: 'There are no new cases of Ebola at present, there is no single current case of confirmed EVD in Nigeria. However, a suspected case of EVD from Ile-Ife, a university student who had contact with the late Port Harcourt doctor at a naming ceremony in Port Harcourt has been quarantined and is being investigated'."

"Epidemiological situation Between 2 and 9 September 2014, there have been 31 more cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), increasing the cumulative number of cases to 62 (14 confirmed, 26 probable, and 22 probable). In total, 35 deaths have been reported (9 confirmed and 26 probable). No deaths have been reported among suspected cases. Nine health-care workers have been diagnosed with EVD, including 7 deaths. All the cases have been localized in Jeera county. The affected villages are Watsi Kengo, Lokolia, Boende, and Boende Muke. Currently, 9 cases have been hospitalized: 4 in Lokolia; 2 in Watsikengo; 2 in Boende; and 1 in Boende Moke. A total of 386 contacts have been listed and 239 contacts have been followed-up. All cases and contacts are linked to the initial index case reported to the World Health Organization on 26 August 2014."

"The effective reproduction number, Rt, of Ebola virus disease was estimated using country-specific data reported from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone to the World Health Organization from March to August, 2014. Rt for the three countries lies consistently above 1.0 since June 2014. Country-specific Rt for Liberia and Sierra Leone have lied between 1.0 and 2.0. Rt<2 indicate that control could be attained by preventing over half of the secondary transmissions per primary case."

"Sierra Leone has lost a fourth doctor to Ebola after a failed effort to transfer her abroad for medical treatment, a government official said Sunday, a huge setback to the impoverished country that is battling the virulent disease amid a shortage of health care workers. Dr. Olivet Buck died late Saturday, hours after the World Health Organization said it could not help medically evacuate her to Germany, Chief Medical Officer Dr. Brima Kargbo confirmed to The Associated Press. Sierra Leone had requested funds from WHO to transport Buck to Europe, saying the country could not afford to lose another doctor. WHO had said that it could not meet the request but instead would work to give Buck "the best care possible" in Sierra Leone, including possible access to experimental drugs."

"US President Barack Obama has announced new support measures that will be put in place to help combat the deadly Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa.
He said the spread of the disease was "spiralling out of control" and posed a potential threat to global security.
Mr Obama confirmed plans to send US troops to the region and new teaching and treatment units to Liberia.
The announcement was made after Mr Obama met officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta."

"The outbreak sweeping West Africa has also touched Liberia, Guinea, Nigeria and Senegal, and is believed to have sickened more than 5,300, according to figures released by the World Health Organization on Thursday. In a sign that the outbreak is picking up steam, more than 700 of those cases were recorded in the last week for which data is available."

"In an attempt to slow the outbreak and identify the sick in hiding, Sierra Leone's 6 million people must stay home starting Thursday at midnight, except for thousands of volunteers who will go house-to-house delivering bars of soap and information about how to prevent Ebola."

"Authorities have said they also expect to discover hundreds of new cases during the Friday, Saturday and Sunday exercise. Many people during this outbreak have not sought treatment for Ebola out of fear that hospitals are merely places people go to die. Still others have been turned away by centres overwhelmed by the increasing number of patients. Sierra Leone's government says it has prepared screening and treatment centres to accept the expected influx of patients after the shutdown."

Number of newly reported cases in Guinea has not increased, however the Situation Report states: "there is no indication of a sustained reduction in case incidence in Guinea".

Number of newly reported cases in Liberia continues to rise, reclassifications of cases continues: "new figures will be published soon, and will reflect significant improvements in data collection, and therefore provide a more accurate understanding of the situation".

Over 200 newly reported cases in Sierra Leone in the past week: "Transmission remains high in the capital, Freetown, and the surrounding urban areas".

"As at 15 September 2014, there have been 71 cases (53 confirmed and probable, 18 suspected) of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). In total, 40 deaths have been reported. 11% of cases have occurred among health-care workers have been diagnosed with EVD."

"A spokesman for the government in Guinea said on Thursday that eight bodies were found two days after a group of health workers and journalists went missing in the country. The journalists and officials came under attack near the southern city of Nzerekore, close to the Liberian border. One journalist was able to escape and later told reporters that she could hear villagers looking for her. The Associated Press said that the group "was doing disinfection and education on prevention methods" when it went missing. Doctors and researchers trying to contain the Ebola outbreak, which is deadlier than all previous outbreaks combined, have run up against a population deeply suspicious of medical personnel. Last month, riots broke out in the same Guinean city over rumors that health care workers were infecting people with the virus."

"A three-day curfew or lockdown to try to stop the spread of the Ebola virus has come into effect in Sierra Leone. The aim of the move is to keep people confined to their homes while health workers isolate new cases and prevent Ebola from spreading further."

"The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has been strongly critical of the lockdown, arguing that ultimately it will help spread the disease. MSF, whose staff are helping to tackle the outbreak, said in a statement this month that quarantines and lockdowns 'end up driving people underground and jeopardising the trust between people and health providers'. 'This leads to the concealment of potential cases and ends up spreading the disease further.'"

"Senegal's health minister said on Friday there was no further risk of Ebola spreading in the West African country, following the end of a quarantine period for those who came into contact with an infected Guinean man. 'The risk of the Ebola virus spreading from the imported case is non-existent for our country,' Awa Marie Coll Seck told a news conference."

"Health workers in Sierra Leone have come under attack while trying to bury the bodies of five Ebola victims east of the capital, a police official said. Sgt. Edward Momoh Brima Lahai said there was a confrontation Saturday between a group of youths and the burial team in the Waterloo district. A witness told state television the burial team initially had to abandon the five bodies in the street and flee. Lahai said the burial was successfully completed after police reinforcements arrived. Sierra Leone is in the middle of an unprecedented three-day lockdown intended to stop the spread of Ebola. Stephen Gauja, co-ordinator of an emergency operations centre in the capital, said Saturday that residents were "largely compliant" with health care workers and volunteers who distributed soap and information about the deadly disease."

"Sierra Leone wrapped up its 72-hour shutdown on Sunday, with authorities reporting that the action aimed at containing the Ebola epidemic had uncovered up to 70 dead bodies in and around the capital. Most of the west African country's six million people were confined to their homes for a third straight day, with only essential workers such as health professionals and security forces exempt."

"Deputy Chief Medical Officer Sarian Kamara revealed that the authorities had received thousands of calls but only a handful of new patients in the Western Area covering Freetown and its surroundings. 'We were... able to confirm new cases which, had they not been discovered, would have greatly increased transmission,' she said. 'Up to this morning, we had 22 new cases.'"

"The Ebola epidemic plaguing Djera, in the Equateur province northwest of the Democratic Republic of Congo is on the verge of being contained, government spokesman Lambert Mende claimed. Speaking after Saturday’s cabinet meeting held in Kinshasa under the leadership of President Joseph Kabila, Mr. Mende said some success has been registered by the Congolese government and its partners to contain the epidemic where it was first detected 1200 km from the capital with a reduced infection rate. Over the past ten days, no new cases of Ebola have been detected in Djera, Mende noted."

"A three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone aimed at stemming the worst Ebola epidemic on record has identified at least 56 new infections, but has not reached everyone in the country and is likely to be extended, a senior official said on Sunday. Stephen Gaojia, head of the Emergency Operations Centre which leads the Ebola response, also said 92 bodies had been recovered across the country by the end of Saturday, the second day of the emergency measure."

"As Liberians battle the Ebola virus, the epidemic continues to spread throughout the country with Grand Bassa County is the latest political subdivision to be hit. The county superintendent, Madam Etweda Cooper, told a group of journalists over the weekend in Buchanan, Grand Bassa that her county is experiencing tough times with the virus. Supt. Cooper has said since the outbreak in July to present, the county has recorded 27 deaths, 43 confirmed cases, 281 contacts and 16 patients with barely three survivals."

"Two of the five countries affected by the world's worst ever Ebola outbreak are managing to halt the spread of the disease, the World Health Organization said on Monday, although the overall death toll rose to 2,793 out of 5,762 cases. "On the whole, the outbreaks in Senegal and Nigeria are pretty much contained," a WHO statement said. There were no new deaths in Guinea, four in Sierra Leone and 39 in Liberia. A separate Ebola outbreak has killed 40 people in Democratic Republic of Congo, where there have been 71 cases, it said in a statement on the situation as of Sept. 18."

"5843 (probable, confirmed and suspected; see Annex 2) cases and 2803 deaths have been reported
in the current outbreak of EVD as at 20 September 2014 by the Ministry of Health of Guinea, as at 17
September 2014 by the Ministry of Health of Liberia, and as at 19 September 2014 by the Ministry of
Health of Sierra Leone"

"Exposure of health-care workers (HCWs) to EVD continues to be an alarming feature of this outbreak. As of 22 September 2014, 348 HCWs are known to have developed EVD (67 in Guinea, 174 in Liberia, 11 in Nigeria, and 96 in Sierra Leone). 186 HCWs have died as a result of EVD infection (35 in Guinea, 85 in Liberia, 5 in Nigeria, and 61 in Sierra Leone)."

"As at 18 September 2014, there have been 68 cases (28 confirmed, 26 probable, 14 suspected) of Ebola virus disease (EVD) reported in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, including eight among health-care workers (HCWs). In total, 41 deaths have been reported, including eight among HCWs. 432 contacts have now completed 21-day follow-up. Of 488 contacts currently being monitored, 468 (96%) were seen on 18 September, the last date for which data has been reported."

"An outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus in Democratic Republic of Congo, unrelated to the epidemic in West Africa, is "almost over" with no new cases detected for several days, Prime Minister Augustin Matata Ponyo said. The government body coordinating the response to Ebola released data on Monday showing Congo had recorded 68 cases in Equateur province since August. Four previously suspected cases had tested negative, but one new case was added. Congo has registered 41 deaths from its outbreak. "Ebola outbreak in DRC almost over," Matata Ponyo said on his official Twitter account. "No new case recorded for nearly 10 days." Unlike West African states, Congo has experience fighting Ebola. However, aid workers are likely to be cautious about declaring victory over the disease after governments in West Africa appeared to downplay the threat of the virus there in the early stages of the outbreak."

"If the world doesn't get the Ebola outbreak in West Africa under control quickly, the disease could become a permanent fixture in the region, spreading as routinely as malaria or the flu, the World Health Organization warns today in a new report. In the worst-case scenario – if nothing is done to effectively control the outbreak -- there could be 1.4 million Ebola cases in Liberia and Sierra Leone by January 20, according to a report released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention."

"A Red Cross team was attacked while collecting bodies believed to be infected with Ebola in southeastern Guinea, the latest in a string of assaults that are hindering efforts to control West Africa's current outbreak. One Red Cross worker is recovering after being wounded in in the neck in Tuesday's attack in Forecariah, according to Benoit Carpentier, a spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. Family members of the dead initially set upon the six volunteers and vandalized their cars, said Mariam Barry, a resident. Eventually a crowd gathered and headed to the regional health office, where they threw rocks at the building. The attack is the most recent in a series that have plagued teams working to bury bodies, provide information about Ebola and disinfect public places."

"Sierra Leone said on Wednesday around 100 bodies and 200 patients had been collected from homes during its three-day lockdown to stem the deadly Ebola epidemic raging in west Africa. Almost six million people across the country were confined indoors for 72 hours from Friday while 28,000 volunteers went door-to-door, giving out advice and identifying new suspected cases and deaths that had been kept from the authorities. 'Over 92 bodies were discovered nationwide during the three-day lockdown of the country,' Karamoh Kabbah, the deputy minister for political affairs, told a news conference in the capital Freetown. He said 77 of the bodies had been collected in the Western Area, a division including the city of 1.2 million and its immediate surroundings. 'Over 200 suspected cases were identified… of which, so far, 130 have been confirmed positive,' he added."

"The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has recorded no new cases of the Ebola virus in the past 12 days, a local official said on Tuesday, suggesting that the efforts to contain the outbreak have been successful. Nason Kabuya Ndowole, mayor of the eastern city of Goma, added that it was too early to assess whether the Ebola threat was over. Ebola cases in the DRC had previously been reported every 1-5 days, and the virus's incubation period - the time interval from infection to onset of symptoms - is between 2 and 21 days, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Earlier this month, the WHO reported that the number of suspected and confirmed Ebola infections in the DRC had doubled to 62 in a week's time."

"Nigeria has cleared all patients under surveillance for the Ebola virus, the federal health ministry said on Wednesday. 'There is nobody again under surveillance for the Ebola virus in any part of Nigeria. All those under surveillance have completed their mandatory 21-day period stipulated by the WHO,' ministry's spokesman Dan Nwomeh told AFP, referring to the World Health Organization. But 42 days, the total of two incubation periods, must elapse before a country can be declared free of the disease, according to the WHO."

"The upward epidemic trend continues in Sierra Leone and most probably also in Liberia. However, the situation in Guinea, although still of grave concern, appears to have stabilized: between 75 and 100 new confirmed cases have been reported in each of the past five weeks."

Liberia: "Notably, there were no new reported confirmed cases from the capital, Monrovia, which in previous weeks has reported a surge in cases. These data differ from credible reports obtained from responders in Liberia, who indicate a
deterioration of the situation in the country, and in Monrovia in particular."

Sierra Leone: "Nationally, the situation in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate, with an increase in the number of new confirmed cases reported over each of the past five weeks. The increase is driven primarily by a sharp increase in the number of newly reported cases in the capital, Freetown. The neighbouring districts of Port Loko, Bombali, and Moyamba have also reported increases in the numbers of cases over the past four to five weeks. The numbers of newly reported cases in Kailahun and Kenema, which have previously been stable or slowly declining, have fallen over the past week, though further investigation will be required to confirm whether this fall is genuine. Cases and deaths found during the three-day house-to-house Ebola sensitization campaign, which came to an end on 21 September, are not yet included in official data."

Healthcare worker infection and and death continues to rise, with the largest jump seen in Sierra Leone. Healthcare worker case counts for Guinea, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria stand at 373 cases and 208 deaths.

"The spread of Ebola seems to have stabilised in Guinea, one of three West African states worst-hit by the disease, but a lack of beds and resistance in affected communities means its advance continues elsewhere, the World Health Organisation said."

"Sierra Leone has ordered the quarantine "with immediate effect" of three districts and 12 tribal chiefdoms - affecting more than one million people - in the largest lockdown in west Africa's deadly Ebola outbreak. President Ernest Bai Koroma, in a national televised address late Wednesday, announced that the northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali were to be closed off along with the southern district of Moyamba - effectively sealing off around 1.2 million people."

"With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than a third of the population, in five of the nation's 14 districts, now finds itself unable to move freely. "The isolation of districts and chiefdoms will definitely pose great difficulty but the lives of everyone and the survival of our country takes precedence over these difficulties," Koroma said."

"A 35-year-old man in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh County, has tested Ebola positive, making it the first case in the county since the outbreak of the disease in the country in March. The man...was showing signs and symptoms of the disease when the Grand Gedeh County Health Team (CHT) picked him up from the Zwedru Central Market last Friday. In a brief interview with the Liberia News Agency Wednesday, the Coordinator of the CHT, Netus Nowena, said the man migrated from Ganta, Nimba County to Grand Gedeh County following the death of nine of his family members from the disease early this month. According to Nowena, the health team was taking the man to Gbarnga, Bong County for treatment when they observed that he was showing signs and symptoms of the virus, adding that he later tested positive for the disease. According to Nowena, the 36 people who were at the holding center for 21 days of observation have been released without any signs or symptoms of Ebola."

"Reports coming from the Central Province of Bong County say there were 36 new suspected Ebola cases in the County last week. This was disclosed by the head of the Bong County Ebola Response task force Superintendent Selena Polson Mappy last Thursday. Out the number, 21 died, she said. Superintendent Mappy also disclosed that four persons out of the number of confirmed cases that were treated at the Ebola Testing Unit have also died."

"The death toll from an outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has risen to at least 3,091 out of 6,574 probable, suspected and confirmed cases, the World Health Organisation said on Friday. Liberia has recorded 1,830 deaths, around three times as many as both Guinea and Sierra Leone, the two other most affected countries, according to WHO data. Nigeria and Senegal, the two other nations that have had confirmed cases of Ebola in the region, did not record any new cases or deaths."

"With its collapsed health service, sick and poorly equipped security forces and broken economy, Ebola-hit Liberia finds itself on the brink of complete societal breakdown, experts warn. The already impoverished west African state was on the slow road to recovery after 14 years of ruinous civil war ended in 2003, following the deaths of 250,000 people. But Information Minister Lewis Brown recently warned that the epidemic, which has left more than 1,800 dead so far this year, risks plunging Liberians back into conflict. Many observers of the country's latest devastating crisis, while stopping short of talk of war, worry about the heightened risk of unrest in a country stalked by death."

"Several police stations in Monrovia have closed after officers died of Ebola fever, and a military camp on the outskirts of Monrovia has reported around 30 sick soldiers, according to a diplomat."

"The health system – embryonic at best before the crisis, with some 50 doctors and 1,000 nurses for 4.3 million people – has been hit hard, losing 89 health workers out of 184 infected, according to the World Health Organization (WHO)."

"Schools have been closed for months with no reopening date in sight, and unemployment is soaring as both the formal and black-market economies collapse."

"Geographic distribution of the cumulative incidence of Ebola, as of September 23, indicates that the highest cumulative incidence (>100 cases per 100,000 population) was found in five districts in Guinea (Boffa, Dubreka, Gueckedou, Macenta, and Telimele), two districts in Liberia (Loffa and Margibi), and two districts in Sierra Leone (Kailahun and Kenema)"

CDC released a report on the control measures used in the outbreak in Nigeria.

"Applying lessons from its NCDC and successful polio EOC, Nigeria quickly established a National Ebola EOC after importation of the disease on July 20, 2014. The early use of the EOC/IMS system enabled the country to streamline a coordinated and effective response in Lagos, (pop. 21 million) and to expand that response to Port Harcourt, another large city. As of September 24, a total of 894 contacts in three states had been monitored, and 20 confirmed or probable Ebola cases identified, of whom eight died. No new cases had occurred since August 31, suggesting that the Ebola outbreak in Nigeria might have been contained."

"The first confirmed case of Ebola has been diagnosed in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention made the announcement during a news conference late Tuesday afternoon. The patient is a man who traveled from Liberia to the U.S. September 19-20. He started exhibiting symptoms on September 24 and was admitted to Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital Dallas Sunday, September 28. Texas health officials say he is in 'strict isolation.' They also say there are no other suspected cases of Ebola in the state. Experts say the man did not exhibit symptoms of the disease on the plane, which is good news. Ebola does not spread until an individual is sick with the virus. It’s not spread through the air, it’s spread through direct contact with a person who is infected with it. This is the first case of Ebola where someone traveled to the United States and became sick after arriving in this country. 'There is no doubt in my mind that we will stop it here,' CDC Director Tom Frieden says."

"The Democratic Republic of Congo raised its death toll from the Ebola virus to 42 on Wednesday as it struggled to contain the second outbreak of the disease in Africa this year. The latest figures include eight health workers, Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi said in a message sent to AFP. Some 70 cases of the deadly virus have been confirmed in a remote region near the town of Boende some 800 kilometres (500 miles) northwest of Kinshasa, with a mortality rate of around 60 percent."

"Health officials in Dallas are monitoring at least five schoolchildren in North Texas who came into contact with a man found to have Ebola virus, after he became sick and infectious. The authorities also said that an early opportunity to put the patient in isolation, limiting the risk of contagion, may have been missed because of a failure to pass along critical information about his travel history. The patient was identified by Liberian health officials and The Associated Press as Thomas Eric Duncan, a Liberian national. Mr. Duncan came to the United States on Sept. 20 aboard a commercial airliner and officials said that he had shown no symptoms of the disease while on the flight and that he had posed no threat to other passengers. Mr. Duncan worked at a shipping company in Monrovia, Liberia, but had just quit his job, giving his resignation in early September, his boss said. He had gotten a visa to the United States and had decided to go, his neighbors said. He lived alone, but has family in the United States, they said. Mr. Duncan may have become infected after his landlord’s daughter fell gravely ill."

"Even as public officials sought to reassure the public that the situation was under control, there were questions about how the patient was treated when he first went to a hospital on Sept. 26. Dr. Mark Lester, executive vice president of the Texas Health Resources System, said the hospital staff had been instructed to ask patients about their travel history, following the advice of federal authorities. That checklist, he said, was utilized by a nurse and the patient volunteered that he had just come from Liberia. 'Regretfully that information was not fully communicated' to the full medical team, Dr. Lester said. As a result, that information was not used in the clinical diagnosis and Mr. Duncan was sent home, with the diagnostic team believing he simply had a low-grade fever from a viral infection. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance two days later, his condition having significantly deteriorated. He remains in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas in serious condition. In the time between Mr. Duncan’s trips to the hospital, health officials said he came into contact with more people while he was symptomatic and infectious."

"Transmission remains persistent and widespread in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, with strong evidence of increasing case incidence in several districts. There are few signs yet that the EVD epidemic in West Africa is being brought under
control."

Guinea: "Transmission is persistent in Gueckedou, the region in which the outbreak originated, which has reported between five and 20 new cases over the past 10 weeks. There has been a slight increase in the number of new cases reported in the capital, Conakry, with 27 new confirmed cases reported this week. Beyla district, which borders Côte d’Ivoire, has now reported its first confirmed case."

Liberia: "There remains compelling evidence obtained from responders and laboratory staff in the country that there is widespread under-reporting of new cases, and that the situation in Liberia, and in Monrovia in particular, continues to deteriorate...A large number of suspected new cases (and deaths among suspected cases) have been reported
from Liberia over the past week.

Sierra Leone: "Nationally, the situation in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate, with an increase in the number of
new confirmed cases reported over each of the past six weeks. The neighbouring districts of Port
Loko, Bombali, and Moyamba, which are adjacent to the capital, Freetown, have now been
quarantined after a surge in new cases over the past four weeks. Tonkolili has also reported a rise in
the number of new cases this week."

"A second person is being closely watched while at least 80 people are being monitored by health officials in Texas after having contact with Thomas Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the United States. Five school-aged children are among the people the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Dallas County Health and Human Services are keeping a watchful eye on. None are showing symptoms, said Erikka Neroes, Spokeswoman for the Dallas County Health and Human Services. Duncan is critically ill and has been in isolation at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital since Sunday. The children are being monitored at home. Authorities have been tracking down family, friends and anyone else who may have come in close contact with him and could be at risk. Several close family members are required by a special state order to remain at home and comply with CDC testings until Oct. 19."

"Health officials in Dallas were assessing about 100 people for possible contact with the Ebola virus Thursday, while four family members of the Texas hospital patient diagnosed with the disease were placed under quarantine Wednesday night to stem its potential spread."

"In Guinea, the district of Lola, which borders Liberia and Côte d'Ivoire, has reported its first two confirmed cases."

"Exposure of health-care workers (HCWs) continues to be an alarming feature of this outbreak. As of 1 October, 382 HCWs are known to have developed EVD (69 in Guinea, 188 in Liberia, 11 in Nigeria and 114 in Sierra Leone). 216 HCWs have died as a result of EVD infection (35 in Guinea, 94 in Liberia, five in Nigeria, 82 in Sierra Leone).

"On 30 September 2014, the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) was informed of the first confirmed imported case of EVD in the United States of America. The patient is an adult with recent travel history to West Africa who developed symptoms compatible with EVD on 24 September 2014, approximately 4 days after arriving in the United States of America. The patient sought medical care on 26 September 2014, and was admitted into isolation on 28 September 2014 at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas. Samples were sent for testing to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, and to the Texas state laboratory. Results were positive for Ebola virus."

"Texas authorities found a homeless man at risk of Ebola, NBC News reported Sunday. He reportedly came into contact with Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person in America to be diagnosed with the virus. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said the person, who was preliminarily identified as Michael Lively, was a “low-risk individual.”"

"In what is the first reported incident of Ebola transmission outside Africa, a Spanish nurse who treated a missionary for the disease at a Madrid hospital tested positive for the disease, Spain's health minister said Monday. The female nurse was part of the medical team that treated a 69-year-old Spanish priest who died in a hospital last month after being flown back from Sierra Leone, where he was posted, Health Minister Ana Mato said. The woman went to the Alcorcon hospital in the Madrid suburbs with a fever and was placed in isolation. Mato said the infection was confirmed by two tests and that the nurse was admitted to a hospital on Sunday. The woman's only symptom was a fever, Antonio Alemany, Madrid director of primary health care, told a news conference. Alemany said authorities are drawing up a list of people the nurse had contact with."

"Spain's health authorities said they had been in touch with a total of 22 people who are thought to have been in contact with the 40-year-old nurse, whose name has not been released.
They are also monitoring around 30 other members of the health care team that treated one of the missionaries.
Officials added that although the nurse began a holiday after one of the missionaries she had been caring for died on 25 September, she did not leave Madrid during this time.
She began feeling ill on 30 September and was diagnosed with ebola on Monday, but is in a stable condition."

"Burial teams in Sierra Leone abandoned the dead bodies of Ebola victims in the capital after going on strike this week, though an official claimed Wednesday the situation had been 'resolved.' In neighboring Liberia, health workers said they planned to strike if their demands for more money and safety equipment were not met by the end of the week. The Sierra Leone Broadcasting Corporation reported that bodies of Ebola victims were being left in homes and on the streets of Freetown because of the strike by burial teams, who complained they had not been paid."

"A confirmed case of EVD has been reported in Spain, but because the case was confirmed during the week ending 12 October (epidemiological week 41), information on this case will be included in the next Ebola Response Roadmap update."

"The past week has seen a continuation of recent trends: the situation in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate, with widespread and persistent transmission of EVD. Problems with data gathering in Liberia continue. It should be emphasized that the reported fall in the number of new cases in Liberia over the past three weeks is unlikely to be genuine. Rather, it reflects a deterioration in the ability of overwhelmed responders to record accurate epidemiological data."

"There is no evidence that the EVD epidemic in West Africa is being brought under control, though there is evidence of a decline in incidence in the districts of Lofa in Liberia, and Kailahun and Kenema in Sierra Leone."

Guinea: "Transmission in Guinea is persistent (figure 1), with approximately 100 new confirmed cases of EVD reported in the past week. For many weeks the outbreak in Guinea has been driven by transmission in three areas: the capital Conakry, Macenta, and Gueckedou, the region in which the outbreak originated...In the east of country, on the border with Côte d’Ivoire, the district of Lola has now reported cases of EVD for the first time (three confirmed cases; figure 4). The neighboring district of Beyla reported its first confirmed cases the previous week."

Liberia: "Approximately 200 new probable and suspected cases, but very few confirmed cases, have been reported in the capital Monrovia in each of the past three weeks...The district of Margibi continues to report high numbers of new confirmed and probable cases (31 in the past week), while the district of Grand Cape Mount has reported new cases for the first time in three weeks. There continues to be a fall in the number of new cases reported in Lofa, which borders Gueckedou in Guinea, with 12 confirmed and probable cases reported this week compared with 39 the previous week. This appears to be a genuine reduction."

Sierra Leone: "Nationally, the situation in Sierra Leone continues to deteriorate, with an increase in the number of new confirmed cases reported over each of the past seven weeks"

"The medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) has reported a sharp increase of Ebola cases in the Guinean capital, Conakry, where there were glimpses of hopes three months ago that the disease was being stabilised. In July, case numbers appeared to decrease in Guinea, suggesting the end of the outbreak might be near. But Médecins Sans Frontières, or Doctors Without Borders, (MSF) is now caring for more than 120 patients, of whom 85 are confirmed to have the virus, in its two case management facilities in the country, Conakry and Guéckédou."

Countries with widespread transmission: "8376 (probable, confirmed and suspected; see Annex 2) cases and 4024 deaths from EVD have been reported up to the end of 7 October 2014 by the Ministries of Health of Guinea and Liberia, and up
to the end of 8 October by the Ministry of Health of Sierra Leone (table 1)."

United States: "On 30 September 2014, the Pan American Health Organization/World Health Organization (PAHO/WHO) was informed of the first confirmed imported case of EVD in the United States. The patient passed away on 8 October."

Spain: "On 6 October 2014, WHO was informed of the first confirmed case of human-to-human transmission of EVD in Spain, after a HCW tested positive for EVD after treating a patient who had repatriated from West Africa. This case represents the first human-to-human transmission of EVD outside Africa. So far there have been no further reports of EVD infection in Spain or the United States of America."

"Liberia said on Friday it was banning journalists from Ebola clinics, defying media rights campaigners who have warned panicked African governments against 'muzzling' reporters in response to the crisis."

"The minister told the Monrovia based station he would insist that journalists report his statements from now on rather than what they saw for themselves. 'There is no protest, everything is fine with the healthcare workers and patients are well taken care of,' he said of the clinic. Earlier, a caller identifying himself as a nurse at the centre told the station that patients had been dying because they were not receiving adequate care."

"The United Nations said on Friday it had quarantined 41 personnel from its Liberia mission, including 20 soldiers, following a second infection among its staff of the deadly Ebola virus. The measure came two days after the mission, known as UNMIL, announced an 'international staff member' working in its medical department tested positive after complaining of symptoms consistent with the Ebola virus. 'Following the discovery on October 5 that an UNMIL medical staff member was symptomatic for Ebola, the mission conducted robust contact tracing to ensure all people that came into contact with the staff member while they were symptomatic are assessed and isolated as necessary,' it said in a statement."

"The announcement of the infection came a week after UNMIL said a Liberian employee had died of probable Ebola. The mission said it would extend a review of its actions launched after the first case to investigating the circumstances of the latest infection."

"Medical staff at Madrid’s Carlos III hospital are unwilling to treat Ebola patients and suspected cases while cleaning staff refused to clean infected areas. Cleaning staff did not want to sanitise the emergency room where Ebola infected nurse Theresa Romero was treated on Monday. Labour unions demanded that better protocols be put in place to protect workers as they voiced their fears over the current situation. On the other hand, medical staff complained about inadequate safety measures and lack of training for dealing with Ebola cases. The provincial Vice-Secretary of the SAE nursing assistants’ union, Elvira González, explained: 'There are staff members who are handing in their notice so that they don’t have to enter.' She added that medical staff could accuse the hospital’s administration of a public health offence should they be forced to work under inadequate conditions."

"A health care worker at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital who cared for dying Ebola patient Thomas Eric Duncan, has tested positive for the virus after a preliminary test, officials said early Sunday. If confirmed, it would be the first known person-to-person transmission of the disease in the United States. Confirmatory testing of the second case on U.S. soil will be conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, the statement from the Texas Department of State Health Services said. The worker reported a fever late Friday and was isolated and referred for testing. 'We knew a second case could be a reality, and we've been preparing for this possibility,' said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. 'We are broadening our team in Dallas and working with extreme diligence to prevent further spread.' The statement added that people who had contact with the health care worker after symptoms emerged 'will be monitored based on the nature of their interactions and the potential they were exposed to the virus.'"

"Thousands of Liberian health care workers are set to begin an indefinite strike at midnight on Monday that could undermine the country’s effort to stop the spread of the deadly Ebola virus and leave several hundred patients without care. Health workers in the West African nation threatened to abandon hundreds of patients in Ebola treatment units, clinics and hospitals if demands for better incentives, working conditions and protective equipment were not met. A meeting to resolve their grievances on Oct. 10 ended in a deadlock with the government refusing the meet their demands, said George Williams, secretary general of the National Health Workers Association of Liberia."

"Forty-three Ebola suspects resident in Bo-Waterside in Tewor District, Grand Cape Mount County have refused to be quarantined. Authorities want the forty-three persons quarantined because they interacted with a suspected Ebola patient who died later. According to the Liberia News Agency correspondent in the county, this was disclosed by the county Assistant Superintendent for Development, Tenneh Simpson Kpedebah, Wednesday during the County Ebola Task Force coordination meeting held in Sinje. She expressed fear that the refusal of the people to be quarantined in accordance with Ministry of Health regulations could lead to the spread of the Ebola virus in the county."

"Kpedebah said the citizens are refusing to be quarantined on grounds that they need supplies such as mattresses, clothes and cooking utensils. Madam Kpedebah explained that the citizens said they will not honor the quarantine regulations if the county Ebola Task Force fails to supply them with the needed items. She noted that presently, Grand Cape Mount County does not have any withholding Center; so they are quarantining people in their respective homes. She said the lack of withholding centers is one of the major challenges facing the county task force in the fight against the spread of the Ebola disease."

"The Ebola outbreak in West Africa is 'unquestionably the most severe acute public health emergency in modern times,' Dr. Margaret Chan, the director general of the World Health Organization, said Monday. Dr. Chan, who dealt with the 2009 avian flu pandemic and the SARS outbreaks of 2002-3, said the Ebola outbreak had progressed from a public health crisis to 'a crisis for international peace and security'."

"'I have never seen a health event threaten the very survival of societies and governments in already very poor countries,' she said in a statement delivered on her behalf to a conference in Manila and released by her office in Geneva. 'I have never seen an infectious disease contribute so strongly to potential state failure.' More than 4,000 people have died from the Ebola virus, all but a handful of them in the West African nations of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to W.H.O. estimates issued last week. Dr. Chan declined to expand on those figures because they were still rising 'exponentially'."

"Conakry, the first major city to be affected by the West Africa Ebola outbreak, is currently seeing a massive spike in cases. The Donka Ebola management centre, situated inside the Ministry of Health hospital complex in Conakry, has been particularly badly affected. The facility admitted 22 patients in one day (6 October), 18 of them coming from the Coyah region, 50 kilometres east of Conakry."

"The Bong County Health Team has reported 73 new cases of Ebola for the period of one week. According to the administrator of the County Health Team Fartormah Jusu, out of the number, nine were confirmed and forty- nine suspected and probable."

"He named Gbarpolu County as the latest epic center of the virus. The disclosure was made Monday during a regular weekly briefing by the County Health Team. The latest increase in the number of suspected Ebola cases in Bong County comes amid an ongoing back off by Health Workers around the country."

"The death rate in the Ebola outbreak has risen to 70 percent and there could be up to 10,000 new cases a week in two months, the World Health Organization warned on Tuesday. WHO assistant director-general Dr Bruce Aylward gave the grim figures during a news conference in Geneva. Previously, WHO had estimated the death rate at around 50 percent. Aylward said the 70 percent death rate was 'a high mortality disease' in any circumstance and that the UN health agency was still focused on trying to get sick people isolated and provide treatment as early as possible. He told reporters that if the world's response to the Ebola crisis isn't stepped up within 60 days, 'a lot more people will die' and there will be a huge need to deal with the spiraling numbers of cases. For the last four weeks, there's been about 1,000 new cases per week — including suspected, confirmed and probable cases, he said, adding that the UN health agency is aiming to get 70 percent of cases isolated within two months to reverse the outbreak. WHO increased its Ebola death toll tally to 4,447 people on Tuesday, nearly all of them in West Africa, from 8,914 cases."

"Nurse Nina Pham is no longer the only American to contract Ebola while caring for Thomas Duncan. A second health care worker at Dallas' Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital has tested positive for the virus. The Texas Department of State Health Services says the worker reported a fever yesterday and was immediately isolated at the hospital. A preliminary Ebola test conducted last night came back positive; confirmatory testing will be conducted at the CDC in Atlanta, reports the AP."

"Data for epidemiological week 41 are incomplete, with missing data for 12 October from Liberia. This reflects the challenging nature of data gathering in countries with widespread and intense EVD transmission. These challenges remain particularly acute in Liberia, where there continues to be a mismatch between the relatively low numbers of new cases reported through official clinical surveillance systems on one hand, and reports from laboratory staff and first responders of large numbers of new cases on the other"

"It is clear, however, that the situation in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone is deteriorating, with widespread and persistent transmission of EVD. An increase in new cases in Guinea is being driven by a spike in confirmed and suspected cases in the capital, Conakry, and the nearby district of Coyah."

Guinea: "There is evidence of an increase in the intensity of transmission in Guinea. Compared with the previous week, a very slight drop in the number of new confirmed cases reported from the capital Conakry (figure 1) has been more than offset by a sharp rise in the number of new cases in the neighbouring district of Coyah, with 25 cases reported between 6 and 12 October ... In the east of the country, on the border with Côte d’Ivoire, the districts of Beyla and Lola both reported new cases (figure 4), emphasizing the need for active surveillance at local border crossings. To the North, the district of Boke, on the border with Guinea-Bissau has reported active transmission for the first time in more than 21 days. The central district of Mamou has reported a confirmed case for the first time."

Liberia: "Data acquisition continues to be a challenge in Liberia. Evidence obtained from responders and laboratory staff in the country suggests that the situation in Liberia is getting worse, and that transmission remains intense in the capital, Monrovia ... Outside Monrovia, most newly reported cases have come from the districts of Bong (75 cases) and Margibi (28 cases)."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission is rampant in Sierra Leone, with 425 new confirmed cases reported between 6 and 12 October (figure 3). The areas hardest hit are the capital, Freetown, with 172 new cases, along with the neighbouring western districts of Bombali (94 cases) and Port Loko (67 cases)."

Health-Care Workers: As of 12th of October, 427 cases, 236 deaths.

"In Spain, 72 people, including 13 high-risk contacts, are being monitored. In the United States of America, 125 contacts are being monitored."

"Doctors Without Borders said Tuesday that 16 of its staff members have been infected with Ebola and that nine have died. The toll highlights the high risk of caring for Ebola patients even at well-equipped and properly staffed treatment centers."

"The deadly Ebola virus has infected two people in what was the last untouched district in Sierra Leone, the government said Thursday, a setback in efforts to stop the spread of the disease in one of the hardest-hit countries. The Emergency Operations Center in its report covering Wednesday noted the two Ebola cases in the Koinadugu district, in Sierra Leone's far north, which had taken aggressive measures to keep the virus out of its mountainous territory since the outbreak early this year."

"Four people suspected of having Ebola in Spain have tested negative in a first round of tests, the government said Friday. Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz Santamaria said the four people taken into hospitals Thursday with fevers had each tested negative. They will be tested a second time in the coming days. They include a passenger on an Air France jet that was isolated at Madrid's airport Thursday and a person who traveled in the same ambulance used to hospitalize infected Spanish nursing assistant Teresa Romero on Oct. 6. The other two were a Red Cross health worker who recently worked with Ebola patients in Sierra Leone and a missionary who came down with a fever after returning from Liberia."

"The outbreak of Ebola in Senegal is officially over but the country remains vulnerable to further cases of the deadly disease being imported, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Twice the maximum incubation period of 21 days, or 42 days, has passed since a Guinean man who traveled to Dakar was confirmed as having Ebola, it said in a statement praising Senegalese authorities for their "diligence". The man has recovered and his 74 known contacts have not caught the disease. "While the outbreak is now officially over, Senegal's geographical position makes the country vulnerable to additional imported cases of Ebola virus disease. It continues to remain vigilant for any suspected cases by strict compliance with WHO guidelines," the U.N. agency said."

"The district of Mamou, Guinea, recently reported a confirmed case for the first time. However, in accordance with more recent conflicting data, this case has been discarded pending further clarification."

"Of the nearly 9,000 cases, Guinea has had the smallest amount, at 1,472. Yet it needs just as much help as its neighbors. Guinea, which is ground zero of this outbreak, is now the one country with the least amount of resources or even attention. This week Doctors Without Borders or Medecins San Frontieres (MSF) warned that Guinea’s capital Conakry is seeing “a massive spike in cases.” The president of Guinea, where 843 people have died, has just begged retired doctors to come back and assist in the treatment effort."

"Guinea officials said the Ebola virus has spread to two new regions, including one with an AngloGold Ashanti Ltd. (ANG) mine, complicating efforts to control the disease. The village that reported the infections in Siguiri is 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Johannesburg-based company’s facility, the Ministry of Health and AngloGold said in statements yesterday. No employees have been infected and operations continue, the mining company said. The death toll in Guinea has risen to 887 since the outbreak started in December, the ministry said in its statement."

"The World Health Organization has declared that Nigeria is now free of Ebola. In an update issued Monday, the U.N. health agency said the country’s containment of the lethal disease was a “spectacular success story.” The announcement comes after 42 days have passed — twice the disease’s maximum incubation period — since the last case in Nigeria tested negative. WHO said Nigeria had traced nearly every contact of Ebola patients in the country, all of whom were linked to the country’s first patient, a Liberian man who arrived with symptoms in Lagos and later died."

"The Gbarpolu County Ebola Taskforce has recorded its first confirmed Ebola-related death since the outbreak of the virus in that part of the country. Supt. Allen Gbowe said in a document read last Thursday by the Gbarpolu County Ebola Taskforce, which he chairs, that the victim, a 16-year-old female from Kpayeaquelleh Town in Gbarpolu, died on October 10 at the Bomi Ebola Treatment Unit in Tubmanburg City. Meanwhile, Superintendent Gbowee has disclosed that there are two other confirmed cases of persons afflicted by the Ebola virus disease (EVD), who were receiving treatment at the Jallah Lone Hospital in Bopolu City. They were later transferred to the Tubmanburg Hospital. He further disclosed that a 14-year-old boy from Parker Town in Gbarma District, who contracted the virus few weeks ago, has fully recovered after undergoing treatment. At the same time, at least 28 residents of Bo-Waterside in Tewor District, Grand Cape Mount County, have been quarantined for their alleged association with a suspected Ebola patient, who later died of the disease."

"The number of people infected with Ebola hemorrhagic fever in Bong County last week rose from 200 to 250 both suspected and confirmed, although no new deaths had been reported by press time, according to the Bong County Health Team. The head of the Bong County Health Team Monday said there were also 73 new cases reported during the period under review."

"Restrictions on the movement of people, quarantining of communities and positive response to the frequent washing of hands and avoiding infested dead bodies have helped to reduce the infection rate of the Ebola virus throughout Liberia, according to Mr. James Dorbor Jallah, Deputy Incident Manager for support services at the Incident Management System."

"According to Mr. Jallah, coordinated information reaching his office from the various Ebola Treatment Units, (ETUs), indicates that across the country, 'there are less than 400 people who are in treatment.' 'Therefore,' Jallah said, 'there are more than 300 ETUs that are empty, which means they are without people who are being treated for the virus.' The latest report has also made it clear that decisions and recommendations approved by President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and implemented by the Liberian government have worked to reduce increased infection from the insidious disease, Mr. Jallah said. 'All of us should continue with the measures outlined in this fight,' he said, 'because the less than 400 people being treated in the various ETUs is still a high number,' he noted."

"With particular reference to the six hardest hit counties of Montserrado, Bomi, Bong, Lofa, Nimba and Margibi, Jallah said, 'Lofa County, particularly Foya and Barkedu, have registered less than ten persons in treatment in the last couple of weeks'."

"While these reports show a success story, the World Health Organization, (WHO) has indicated that there could be 10,000 infections weekly in the coming weeks in Liberia."

"The Liberian Senate will meet today to decide whether to pass a vote of no confidence against the Minister for Health and Social Welfare, Dr. Walter T. Gwenigale, which could lead to his dismissal. The action by the Senate was in response the Minister’s refusal to reinstate two dismissed health workers."

"A UNICEF survey of 1,400 households across Sierra Leone found that EVD survivors face high levels of stigma, shame, and discrimination from communities, undermining their ability to rebuild their lives. About 96 per cent of households in the study reported some discriminatory attitudes toward people with suspected or confirmed EVD, and 76 per cent said they would not welcome someone who was infected with EVD back into their community, even if that person has recovered"

"A rapid assessment survey in Sierra Leone conducted by the FAO found that 47 per cent of farmers
have had their work 'considerably disrupted' by the EVD outbreak."

"After emerging months ago in eastern Sierra Leone, Ebola is now hitting the western edges of the country where the capital is located with dozens of people falling sick each day, the government said Tuesday. So many people are dying that removing bodies is reportedly a problem. Forty-nine confirmed cases of Ebola emerged in just one day, Monday, in two Ebola zones in and around the capital, the National Ebola Response Center, or NERC, said."

Guinea: "The outbreak in Guinea is being driven by transmission in four key areas. The 18 confirmed cases newly reported this week from the capital, Conakry, is the second highest weekly total since the outbreak began (figure 1). N'Zerekore (19 confirmed cases) and Kerouane (18 confirmed cases) have shown a sustained increase in new cases over the past two weeks. Both areas are near the border with Cote d'Ivoire to the east; to the west they border the district of Macenta, where transmission has been intense for the past 10 weeks (38 new confirmed cases reported during the past week)."

Liberia: "The 444 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases reported from Liberia this week is the highest number in the past four weeks and the fourth highest since the outbreak began (figure 2). Liberia remains the country worst affected by the outbreak. All but one of Liberia s 15 administrative districts has now reported at least one confirmed or probable case of EVD (figure 4) since the outbreak began, but transmission is most intense in the capital, Monrovia, with 305 new probable and suspected cases reported this week."

Liberia: "Only 15 of the 444 new cases reported nationwide from Liberia this week are confirmed cases. This is due to a
continuing failure to integrate laboratory results into clinical epidemiology reports."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 325 new confirmed cases reported during the past week (figure 3). The capital, Freetown, reported 138 new confirmed cases, and remains the area of most intense transmission, followed by the neighbouring western districts of Bombali (53 confirmed cases) and Port Loko (39 confirmed cases)."

United States: "Of 172 possible contacts, 60 have completed 21-day follow-up. A total of 112 contacts are currently being monitored in Texas. In Ohio, 153 crew and passengers who shared a flight with the third confirmed case (prior to the case developing symptoms) are being followed-up, though they are considered low-risk."

"The Malian government has confirmed the first case of Ebola in the country. It said a two-year-old girl had tested positive for the haemorrhagic virus. Reports say she recently returned from the neighbouring Guinea."

"A doctor in New York has been confirmed as the city’s first case of Ebola. The man is Dr Craig Spencer, who was treating Ebola patients in Guinea working with the group Doctors Without Borders. The health worker had recently returned from Ebola-stricken Africa, and is believed to have travelled on the New York subway, visited a Manhattan bowling alley and caught a taxi in the 24 hours before he was diagnosed. The bowling alley Dr Spencer visited, The Gutter in Brooklyn, has reportedly been advised to close its doors. Dr Spencer was rushed by ambulance from his home in Harlem to Bellevue Hospital suffering from a 103-degree Fahrenheit (39.4 degree Celsius) fever and nausea, The New York Post reported."

"A two-year-old girl who was Mali's first confirmed case of Ebola has died, a local health official said on Friday. The health official, who asked not to be named, said she died in the western Malian town of Kayes at around 1600 GMT. There was no immediate official comment from health authorities but Oumar Sylla, a Kayes resident, said local radio stations were reporting the information."

"All but one district in Liberia and all districts in Sierra Leone have now reported at least one case of EVD since the start of the outbreak (figure 1). Of the eight Guinean and Liberian districts that share a border with Cote d'Ivoire, only two are yet to report a confirmed or probable case of EVD."

"Five countries (Mali, Nigeria, Senegal, Spain, and the United States of America) have now reported a case or cases
imported from a country with widespread and intense transmission."

United States: "There have now been four cases and one death (table 2) in the United States of America. The most recent case is a medical aid worker who volunteered in Guinea and returned to New York City on 17 October. The patient was
screened and was asymptomatic on arrival, but reported a fever on 23 October, and tested positive for EVD. The
patient is currently in isolation at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, one of eight New York State hospitals that
have been designated to treat patients with EVD. Possible contacts are being identified and followed up."

Mali: "On 23 October, Mali reported its first confirmed case of EVD (table 2). The patient was a 2-year old girl who travelled from the Guinean district of Kissidougou with her grandmother to the city of Kayes in western Mali, which is approximately 600 km from the Malian capital Bamako and lies close to the border with Senegal. The patient was symptomatic for much of the journey. On 22 October the patient was taken to Fousseyni Daou hospital in Kayes, where she died on on 24 October. At present, 43 contacts, of whom 10 are HCWs, are being monitored; efforts to trace further contacts are ongoing. A WHO team was already in Mali to assess the country's state of readiness for an initial case. A rapid-response team will also arrive in the coming days."

"A two year-old girl, who tested positive for the Ebola virus in Mali, died Friday amid suspicion from the World Health Organization, or WHO, that she might have come in contact with several more people in the country. She had travelled from Guinea to Mali’s western town of Kayes with her grandmother while she was ill and tested positive for the virus on Thursday. The girl, whose name has not been released, was diagnosed with the virus in Kayes on Thursday, making Mali the sixth African nation to have a confirmed Ebola case and death. The WHO is monitoring 43 people, including 10 health workers, in Mali who are suspected to have come in contact with the girl."

"The WHO said that an investigation into the girl’s case showed that she had already started showing symptoms before being taken to Kayes, making her contagious and raising the risk of more people being infected. 'The WHO is treating the situation in Mali as an emergency. The child’s symptomatic state during the bus journey is especially concerning, as it presented multiple opportunities for exposures -- including high-risk exposures -- involving many people,' the WHO said in a statement Friday, adding: 'Key staff from WHO and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) were already in Mali assisting with the country’s preparedness measures, should an imported case occur.'"

"Mali will not close its border with neighbouring Guinea after a two-year-old girl infected with Ebola was brought across the frontier by her grandmother and died in Mali this week, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said on Saturday. The girl travelled hundreds of kilometres through Mali - including a stop in the capital Bamako - on public transport, potentially exposing many people to the virus, before she died in the western town of Kayes on Friday. Keita said that the incident showed it was impossible to completely seal his country off from Ebola in neighbouring Guinea but said he remained calm as the girl's journey and potential contacts had already been traced. "Guinea is Mali's neighbour. We have a shared border that we did not close and we will not close," he told France's RFI radio station. Land-locked Mali relies on the ports of neighbouring Senegal, Guinea and Ivory Coast as gateways for much of its import needs."

"After two-year-old Fanta Kone's father died in southern Guinea, the toddler's grandmother took her from the forested hills where the Ebola outbreak first began months ago to bring her home to Mali. It wasn't long, though, before the little girl started getting nosebleeds. By the time the pair made their way back more than 1,000 kilometres to the heat-baked town of Kayes several days later, the toddler had a high fever and was vomiting blood. Doctors swiftly diagnosed Fanta with Ebola, but she soon succumbed to the virus already blamed for killing nearly 5,000 people in the region."

"Public transport buses in Guinea and Mali are often overcrowded, with children sitting on laps and passengers standing in the aisles. Already they are making a list of the towns that Fanta and her grandmother passed through: Keweni, Kankan, Sigouri, Kouremale and the capital of Bamako. Health officials there are rushing to finish an isolation facility that can be used should additional cases emerge."

"Health officials in Mali have identified 111 people who came into contact with the nation’s first Ebola patient last week, according to an internal World Health Organization document. Workers have been unable to find at least 40 of those people who may have been exposed to the toddler, the Geneva-based WHO said in the document, seen by Bloomberg News. The two-year-old girl contracted the disease in Guinea and died on Oct. 25 in Mali. Mali’s government is working with the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres to limit the spread of the disease, which has already killed about 5,000 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone since March. Mali’s weak health system will make it harder to track everyone down and isolate them, the Red Cross said last week. Medical charity MSF, known as Doctors Without Borders in English, said that four health and sanitation experts should be in Mali tomorrow."

"The Red Cross said Tuesday the weekly total of Ebola victims collected by its body disposal teams around the Liberian capital is falling dramatically, indicating a sharp drop in the spread of the epidemic. The announcement appears at odds with an assessment by the World Health Organization (WHO), which said last week transmission 'remains intense' in the capitals of Liberia and neighbouring Guinea and Sierra Leone. Fayah Tamba, head of the Liberian Red Cross, said his workers collected 117 bodies last week from Montserrado county, which includes Monrovia -- a drop of almost two-thirds from the high of 315 from September 15 to 21."

"The geographic distribution of the number of Ebola cases reported during September 28–October 18 changed from the distribution of cases reported during August 31–September 23 (3), when counts were highest in the areas where Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea meet. Counts of Ebola cases reported during September 28–October 18 were highest in the area around Monrovia and in the district of Bong, Liberia; the Freetown area and the northwest districts of Sierra Leone; and the district of Macenta, Guinea (Figure 2)."

"The map of the cumulative incidence of Ebola, as of October 18, indicates that the highest incidence rate (>100 cases per 100,000 population) was reported by two districts in Guinea (Guéckédou and Macenta), five districts in Liberia (Bomi, Bong, Lofa, Margibi, and Montserrado), and four districts in Sierra Leone (Bombali, Kailahun, Kenema, and Port Loko) (Figure 3)."

"Liberia may be seeing decline in the spread of Ebola, with a decline in the number of burials and a plateau in laboratory-confirmed cases, World Health Organization Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward said on Wednesday. 'Do we feel confident that the response is now getting an upper hand on the virus? Yes, we are seeing slowing rate of new cases, very definitely,' he told a news conference. He said there had been 13,703 cases and the reported death toll, to be published later on Wednesday, was likely to be over 5,000. A jump in the number of cases was due to the data being updated with old cases rather than new cases, he said."

Medical: "The EVD outbreak in Sierra Leone is now present in all 14 of the country’s districts. In the past few weeks, a surge in transmission has been taking place in the Western area, including the capital Freetown. It is now the district with the highest prevalence of cases (1,001)."

Essential Services: "New (partial) data on severe acute malnutrition admissions in Liberia for the month of September revealed that a total of 325 severely malnourished children under the age of five from seven counties were admitted to UNICEF-supported integrated management of acute malnutrition treatment sites"

"Two people are suspected of having Ebola after coming into contact with a two-year-old girl who died of the disease in Mali last week, according to data from the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. An epidemiological presentation by both agencies, given on Thursday and seen by Reuters on Friday, breaks down the girl's journey from Guinea to Mali with her grandmother, five-year-old sister and her uncle, and shows she may have had contact with 141 people in all, 57 of them yet to be identified. One of the 84 contacts who have so far been traced is suspected of having Ebola but has not been tested, the presentation shows. Another four suspected cases have been tested. Three showed negative results, with one result yet to come in."

"A total of 13 567 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) have been reported in six affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Spain, and the United States of America) and two previously affected countries (Nigeria, Senegal) up to the end of 29 October. There have been 4951 reported deaths."

"The cases reported are fewer than those reported in the Situation Report of 29 October, due mainly to suspected cases in Guinea being discarded."

"France is treating a United Nations employee who contracted Ebola in Sierra Leone. "This person, who worked in Sierra Leone in the fight against Ebola, has undergone a secure medical evacuation by specialised aircraft," the ministry said in a statement. The victim has been placed in isolation under high security in an army training hospital in Saint-Mande near Paris. A French nurse, who worked for Doctors Without Borders in Liberia, was treated for Ebola at the same hospital in September and recovered."

""Over one thousand workers at the Ebola treatment centre have gone on sit down strike demanding their one month backlog," reports the newspaper, referring to the Kenema Government Hospital, one of the most active Ebola treatment centers in the country. The health personnel, which reportedly includes "burial teams, drivers, surveillance officers and a host of other teams who prefer to remain anonymous," have refused to work until they receive their salaries, demanding that the risk they place on their lives interacting with Ebola patients be recompensed. They have taken to chanting "no pay, no work" during their protests. The Awareness Times also reports that the number is significantly lower than the total number of health workers who have not received pay. The government confirmed that workers in "over 800 communities" have not received weekly salaries for more than a month. The article ends ominously: "Meanwhile a team of police personnel arrived at the Kenema Government Hospital to quell down the situation as it was gradually becoming riotous." The issue of public order has plagued Sierra Leone's Ebola efforts potentially more than the other affected countries. Sierra Leone's Ebola workers have gone on strike before--most notably when burial workers refused to handle the bodies this October."

"Ebola is spreading up to nine times faster in parts of Sierra Leone than two months ago, a report by the Africa Governance Initiative (AGI) said on Sunday (Nov 2). "Whilst new cases appear to have slowed in Liberia, Ebola is continuing to spread frighteningly quickly in parts of Sierra Leone," said the AGI report. On average, 12 new cases a day were seen in the rural areas surrounding Freetown in late October, compared with 1.3 cases in early September, the report said, a nine-fold increase. Transmission was also increasing rapidly in the capital Freetown, with the average number of daily cases six times higher than two months ago. The analysis was based on three-day averages of new cases recorded by Sierra Leone's health ministry."

"A doctor in Sierra Leone has died of Ebola - the fifth local doctor in the West African nation to die of the disease, authorities said Monday. Dr. Godfrey George, medical superintendent of Kambia Government Hospital in northern Sierra Leone, died overnight, according to Sierra Leone's government."

"The World Health Organisation has announced Mali currently has no Ebola cases but 39 people are still being sought after sharing public transport with a two-year-old who died from the disease. A WHO spokeswoman said 108 contacts were being followed up, including 33 health workers, but epidemiologists believe the 39 contacts who have not been traced are at low risk, as they areunlikely to have had physical contact with the sick toddler. The girl's five-year-old sister had a fever and was tested and found to be suffering from malaria, not Ebola. Other family members are under observation in the same hospital and doing well, with no fever or other symptoms, the WHO said."

"A fresh outbreak of Ebola in a part of Sierra Leone where the virus was thought to have been contained has raised fears of a new, uncontrolled infection chain that could send the death toll soaring. A Red Cross ambulance team was sent to the remote district of Koinadugu, which had prided itself on being the only area to have kept Ebola at bay, from on Tuesday to urgently collect 30 corpses for medical burial. The outbreak is a major setback for the Ebola response force and the district, which two weeks ago remained resolved to control the spread of the virus that has officially infected 5,338 people and claimed 1,510 lives in the country. Koinadugu has been operating a self-imposed quarantine for four months, thanks to the intervention of an expat businessman, Momah Konte, who returned from Washington and worked with local officials and tribal chiefs to try to prevent the spread."

"The head of the incident management team on Ebola, Mr. Tolbert Nyensuah, has disclosed that Lofa, Sinoe, Grand Gedeh and two other counties have reported zero case of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) for the past four weeks. Mr. Nyensuah, who is also the Assistant Minister for Preventive and Curative Service at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, noted that the decline of the transmission of the virus in Lofa and other counties is good news in the battle against the killer disease. He disclosed that there has also been a decline in the person to person transmission from 45% to 18%. The top health ministry official made the disclosure Monday, November 3 at the regular 'Ebola Hour' held at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) in Monrovia. He mentioned that no new case of the disease have been reported among healthcare workers over the past week. Despite these gains in the fight against the epidemic, he warned Liberians not to be too complacent. 'While we are receiving and reporting this good news, people should not be too complacent, they should rather be more vigilant than ever before,' Minister Nyensuah further warned. 'As we stand, no county is Ebola free in Liberia even though we might have gotten some good news in recent weeks. This morning, we reported a total of 39 cases across our ETUs. This include probable, suspected and confirmed. We need to keep up the fight.'"

"Thousands of people in Sierra Leone are being forced to violate Ebola quarantines to find food because deliveries are not reaching them, aid agencies said. Large swaths of the West African country have been sealed off to prevent the spread of Ebola, and within those areas many people have been ordered to stay in their homes. The government, with help from the UN’s World Food Program, is tasked with delivering food and other services to those people. But there are many “nooks and crannies” in the country that are being missed, Jeanne Kamara, Christian Aid’s Sierra Leone representative, said Tuesday."

"A Spanish nurse who was the first person to catch Ebola outside Africa has left a Madrid hospital after recovering from the deadly virus. Ms Romero, 44, was part of a team at the Carlos III hospital who volunteered to treat two elderly Spanish missionaries who caught the disease in Africa. Both missionaries died in Madrid in August and September."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains very concerning in Sierra Leone, with the country reporting 435 confirmed cases in the past week. Much of this was driven by intense transmission in the capital of Freetown, which reported 115 new confirmed cases and remains one of the worst affected cities in this outbreak (figure 3). The western districts of Bombali (90 confirmed cases) and Port Loko (64 confirmed cases) and the western rural area of the country (75 confirmed cases) remain key drivers of the rise in incidence in the country."

Guinea: "While the incidence of EVD appears to be stable at a national level, EVD transmission in Guinea remains intense.
There were 93 new confirmed cases reported in the past week, and more than half of those cases were reported in Macenta, in the south-west of Guinea near the Liberian border. The district reported 50 confirmed cases in the past week, and remains the most seriously affected area in Guinea. There are, however, signs that the incidence could be flattening in some areas. The outbreak’s epicentre of Gueckedou did not report a single confirmed case in the past week."

Liberia: "There appears to be some evidence of a decline at the national level in Liberia, although new case numbers remain high in parts of the country. While Liberia did not report any confirmed cases in its situation reports in the past week, it reported 89 probable cases. The Montserrado area, which includes the capital of Monrovia, accounted for 50 probable cases in the past week (figure 2). This continuing intensity of transmission emphasizes the need to continue efforts to contain the spread of disease in the capital."

"The Ebola outbreak in Dallas officially ends Friday, as time runs out for monitoring people who came into contact with the deadly disease. The last person to be monitored is an unidentified hospital worker who handled infectious medical waste on Oct. 17. Twenty-six others have been pronounced healthy and released from monitoring since Wednesday. 'We feel very comfortable that everyone who could have been exposed to Ebola has been monitored and found to be asymptomatic,' said Dr. David Lakey, commissioner of the Texas Department of State Health Services. 'No one is under investigation now,' he added."

"Case incidence is declining in some districts in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, while steep rises persist in other districts."

"Of the eight Guinean and Liberian districts that share a border with Cote d'Ivoire, all but one in Guinea have reported a confirmed or probable case of EVD"

Health-Care Workers: As of 4th of November, 549 cases, 311 deaths.

Health-Care Workers: "WHO is undertaking extensive investigations to determine how each HCW became infected. Early indications are that a substantial proportion of infections have occurred outside the context of Ebola treatment and care. Infection prevention and control quality assurance checks are underway at Ebola treatment centres in the three intense-transmission countries."

United States: "The last contact being monitored in connection with the 3 cases in Texas was expected to complete the 21-day follow-up on 7 November. Of a total of 177 possible contacts in the USA, 16 are being monitored and 161 have completed the 21-day follow-up period."

"The EVD outbreak has likely killed far more people than the 4,828 deaths reported by the World Health Organization, WHO's strategy chief Christopher Dye said Thursday, warning that thousands of fatalities were likely not accounted for. The likely explanation is that many people are burying the dead in secret, possibly to avoid having authorities interfere with burial customs like washing and touching the deceased, which is widely blamed for much of the transmission. The fact that WHO-reported numbers of cases and deaths are lower now than they were last week is due to a different, more consistent manner of counting, Mr. Dye said. It does not imply a slowing down of the disease."

"Sierra Leone's Deputy Health Minister Madina Radman said the country's failure to clearly separate its EVD treatment units from regular health facilities had destroyed confidence in hospitals and clinics. 'We are struggling to regain confidence in our health facilities because of this mistake', she said. 'About 50 per cent of the deaths in the country are not Ebola but, because people fear to come to some of our healthcare facilities, they die needlessly due to other treatable diseases.'"

"According to analysis by the NGO Action Contre la Faim and the University of Naples Federico II, in 2015 the EVD crisis will lead to an increase of people suffering from undernourishment in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. 5,3 to 5,7 million people are expected be undernourished in 2015 in the 3 most affected countries, compared to 5 million before the start of the epidemic."

"The community of Jene-Wonde in Grand Cape Mount County near the border with Sierra Leone has become a new epicenter for the deadly Ebola outbreak in Liberia, which is also hitting Sierra Leone and Guinea."

"Momo Sheriff, who lost his son to Ebola, said there is no health care in the community and leaders have no way to manage it. The tiny town already has lost 10 per cent of its population to Ebola since late September. Amid all the deaths, markets and farms nearby have been abandoned."

"Dressed in an African lappa suit, four months old Fatu Bayor lies quietly on her mother's lap. Saliva and breast milk pours down from her mouth as her mother cleans it up frequently. The baby may never recall the predicament her family, including her 26 year-old, mother Fanta Baryor went through in Barkedu, Quardu Gboni District. The town has so far recorded the highest Ebola deaths in Lofa County."

"Water and sanitation form part of the problem in the town, with just three usable handpumps and no public latrines. The people use the bush for toilet. Only 27 persons survived from the virus in Barkedu, which killed over 150 persons, making it the highest Ebola death ever reported in a single town in Lofa County."

"New York City doctor Craig Spencer will be released from Bellevue Hospital on Tuesday after being treated for the Ebola virus, The New York Times reported Monday. Spencer, 33, had been working with Doctors Without Borders until last month treating Ebola patients in Guinea. He returned to New York on Oct. 17 and began to show symptoms the morning of Oct. 23. He was taken to the hospital in an ambulance and was diagnosed with Ebola several hours later. The hospital confirmed the news, saying in a statement that Spencer has been declared free of the Ebola virus and poses no public health risk. City officials, including Mayor Bill de Blasio and Department of Health Commissioner Dr. Mary Bassett, will discuss Spencer's discharge in a Tuesday press conference. Spencer is expected to speak as well. Spencer was hospitalized in serious condition but gradually improved over time. He received antiviral therapy as well as a plasma transfusion from health worker Nancy Writebol, who contracted the virus in Liberia and survived it."

"A doctor in Sierra Leone has tested positive for Ebola, dealing yet another blow to the country's fight against the deadly outbreak, an official announced Tuesday. Dr. Martin Salia, a specialist surgeon at a major hospital in the capital of Freetown, is the sixth Sierra Leonean doctor to become infected in this outbreak. Salia is receiving treatment, said Dr. Brima Kargbo, Sierra Leone's chief medical officer. He offered no other details."

"Malian authorities on Wednesday reported two new deaths from Ebola that are not believed to be linked to the nation's only other known case, an alarming setback as Mali tries to limit the epidemic ravaging other countries in the region. The announcement in this city of about 2 million came just a day after Malian health authorities said there had been no other reported cases -- let alone deaths -- after a 2-year-old girl who had traveled to Mali from Guinea succumbed to the virus in late October. A nurse working at a clinic in the capital of Bamako died Tuesday, and tests later showed she had Ebola, Communications Minister Mahamadou Camara said Wednesday. A patient she had treated died on Monday and was later confirmed to have had the disease as well. The patient -- a Guinean national -- came to the Clinique Pasteur on Oct. 25 late at night and was so ill he could not speak or give information about his symptoms, said the head of the clinic. 'His family did not give us all the information that would have led us to suspect Ebola,' Dramane Maiga told The Associated Press. Government health officials were slow to act, Maiga said. The nurse was hospitalized on Saturday and hospital officials did not call the health ministry until Monday morning. Health officials did not arrive at the clinic until 6 p.m. and by the time the test results came back, the 25-year-old nurse was already dead, said Maiga."

"Several health care facilities 'abandoned' as nurses strike over higher pay and protective equipment. Hospitals and health care facilities have been affected in Liberia as some nurses and medical professionals staged a walkout demanding better pay and safer working conditions in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus."

"Authorities in Mali quarantined dozens of people on Wednesday at the home of a 25-year-old nurse who died from Ebola in the capital, Bamako, and at the clinic where he treated an imam from Guinea who died with Ebola-like symptoms.
The imam from the border town of Kouremale was never tested for the disease and his body was washed in Mali and returned to Guinea for burial without precautions against the virus.
Two aid workers said that another person who lived in the house where the imam stayed in Bamako had died this week and was buried without being tested.
A doctor at the Pasteur Clinic where the nurse worked - one of Bamako's top medical centers - is also suspected to have contracted Ebola."

"In Mali, there have been 4 reported confirmed and probable cases, and 4 deaths. The most recent cases are not related to the first EVD-positive patient in Mali, who died on 24 October."

"There is some evidence that case incidence is no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but steep increases persist in Sierra Leone. A mixed picture emerges at the district level. Transmission is consistently high in Conakry and Macenta in Guinea; Montserrado in Liberia; and in the western and northern areas of Sierra Leone. Declines in incidence continue in Lofa in Liberia; and Kenema and Kailahun in Sierra Leone. Cases and deaths continue to be under-reported in this outbreak."

Guinea: "Intense EVD transmission persists in Guinea, despite the incidence stabilizing in some districts. Case numbers have been fluctuating but remain consistently high. There were 145 new confirmed cases reported in Guinea in the week to 9 November."

Liberia: "Weekly case numbers fell in Liberia from mid-September to the end of October. This decline has since stabilized, and a reversal of this trend is possible. Liberia reported 97 confirmed and probable cases in the week to 8 November."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains high in Sierra Leone, with 421 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 9 November. Much of this was driven by intense transmission in the country’s west and north. Transmission remains intense in the capital Freetown, which reported 77 new confirmed cases in the past week (figure 3). High levels of activity also persist in the nearby Bombali and the Western rural area, which each reported 69 confirmed cases. Port Loko and Tonkolili each reported 56 confirmed cases."

United States: "One HCW in New York and 2 HCWs in Texas have tested negative for Ebola twice and have been released from hospital. All contacts in the country have completed the 21-day follow-up period."

"The 2 confirmed cases in Mali are not linked. They arise from independent chains of transmission involving different villages and different families across the border in Guinea. Background about the new case: the transmission chain starts in Guinea According to the preliminary investigation, a 70-year-old male resident of Kourémalé village, in the Siguiri prefecture of Guinea, had onset of symptoms from an undiagnosed disease on 17 October. On 18 October, he was admitted to a private clinic in the mining town of Siguiri. The town, which is located along Guinea's 800 km border with Mali, was an intense focus of Ebola virus transmission from early July to mid-August. As his condition did not improve, he was transferred to another clinic located just across the border in Mali. On 25 October, he travelled by car, together with 4 family members to seek treatment at the Pasteur Clinic in Bamako. He was suffering from acute kidney failure, a complication often seen in late-stage Ebola virus disease. Multiple laboratory tests were performed, but not for Ebola. He was treated at the Pasteur Clinic from 25 October until his death, from kidney failure, on 27 October. In addition, a friend who visited him at the clinic also died abruptly from an undiagnosed disease. Both are considered probable Ebola cases. For both, no samples are available for testing. The nurse, whose fatal Ebola infection was confirmed on 11 November, worked at the Pasteur Clinic. Because of his religious status as a Grand Imam, his body was transported to a mosque in Bamako for a ritual washing ceremony. The body was then returned to the native village of Kourémalé for formal funeral and burial ceremonies. Although these events are still under investigation, WHO staff assume that many mourners attended the ceremonies. A devastated family In that same village, the deceased patient's first wife died of an undiagnosed disease on 6 November. His brother and his second wife are currently being managed at an Ebola treatment centre in Gueckedou, Guinea. All 3 accompanied the patient during the car trip to Bamako. On 10 November, his daughter died from an undiagnosed disease. The family declined offers of a safe burial. On 11 November, the man's son, who is currently at the Ebola treatment center in Gueckedou, tested positive for Ebola at the European Union's mobile biosafety level 3 laboratory there. He was the fourth family member in the car trip to Bamako. Confirmation of his infection further increases the likelihood that deaths in other family members were caused by Ebola. Emergency measures under way Intensive contact tracing is under way in both countries, with support from WHO, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), MSF, and other international partners."

"Liberia's President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said Thursday she would not seek an extension to a state of emergency imposed in August over Ebola, which has hit the country harder than any other this year. Her announcement is a sign of progress in the fight against the disease, which has killed more than 2,800 people in Liberia since breaking out in West Africa in March. The decision effectively ends the state of emergency that officially expired earlier this month, though Sirleaf said a night curfew remains in force. The emergency had allowed authorities to restrict movement in areas hard hit by the virus. Ebola has hit Liberia harder than Guinea or Sierra Leone, the two other countries at the center of the worst outbreak of the disease on record. 'The progress we have witnessed coupled with the various measures and ongoing interventions ... have combined to re-position our country to sustain the fight against the virus until it is finally eradicated from our country,' Sirleaf said. 'Notwithstanding these gains, a number of our compatriots are still lying in ETUs (Ebola Treatment Units), hot-spots are springing up in rural areas, and a few more of our compatriots are still dying of Ebola.'"

"Mali reported the death of a girl suspected of having Ebola, as the nation races to contain the virus that has ravaged three of its West African neighbors. Results from tests to confirm whether the girl had the virus will be known today, Alassane Souleymane, a spokesman for Mali’s communication ministry, said by e-mail today. Five people have been confirmed as having Ebola and a sixth case is suspected, Hubert Balique, a French public-health expert consulting with the French embassy in Mali, told reporters yesterday. It’s unclear whether the girl whose death was reported today was one of those cases."

"Bong County Health Officer, Dr. Samson Arzoaquoi, has reported 10 new Ebola cases in Taylor Town, Yelequelleh District in Bong County. He told the Liberia News Agency in Phebe Wednesday that of the 10 cases, eight were confirmed positive and have been moved to the Bong Ebola Treatment Unit. The remaining two suspects and a number of contacts are expected to be taken to the ETU and holding center respectively. Dr. Arzoaquoi attributed the new cases to a resident who brought to the town three children from Monrovia whose mother had died of the Ebola disease. Meanwhile, Dr. Arzoaquoi has disclosed that the Bong ETU has discharged over 33 of its cumulative admission of 243 patients and discharged 121 who were tested negative of the virus. He pointed out that the ETU currently holds 24 cases, 22 of which are confirmed, while two are suspected cases."

" At least 5,177 people are known to have died in the world's worst recorded Ebola outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Friday, an increase of 17 since its last update on Wednesday. The total of 14,413 cases in eight countries includes 1,187 deaths in Sierra Leone, 1,166 in Guinea and 2,812 in Liberia. The Liberian toll has been revised downwards from 2,836 because of reclassification, the WHO said."

"In Mali, there have been 4 reported cases, including 3 reported deaths, as of 13 November. The most recently
reported cases in Bamako are not related to the first case in Kayes, who died on 24 October. A total of 251
contacts are being followed-up in Bamako, and 5 in Kourémalé. Twelve contacts related to the first case are still
under follow-up in Kayes."

"Senegal has lifted a ban on traffic by air and sea with Ebola-stricken Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, reversing a measure in place since August to halt the spread of the disease, Senegal's APS news agency reported on Friday. Senegal's land border with Guinea, which was the first country to record Ebola in the region this year, remains closed, APS said. Mali, Senegal's neighbour to the east, is battling a new wave of cases. However, that border remains open."

"Congolese officials say its separate Ebola outbreak that killed dozens of people this year as an unrelated Ebola epidemic swept West Africa is now over. Congo's Health Minister Felix Kabange Numbi made the announcement Saturday. Authorities said that at least 49 people died, including eight health workers, since Ebola erupted in Equateur province in northwestern Congo in August. The Congo outbreak came amid a regional epidemic that now has left more than 5,000 dead, but Congo's Ebola cases were not related to those in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia."

"Guinea Bissau’s General Director of prevention and health promotion, Nicholas Almeida announced Saturday the reopening of borders with Ebola-hit Guinea to facilitate trade between the two countries. 'We will continue to reinforce the preventive measures against the deadly Ebola virus,' Mr Almeida said, pointing out that the emergency plan would be still in force despite the lack of means to fully put it in place."

"A senior World Health Organization official has warned the number of Ebola cases in Liberia, which had recently shown some signs of decline, is starting to pick up again, most likely because "people are relaxing their guard." "We are seeing taxis full of people again in the streets, and packed. We are seeing people not washing their hands again. We are seeing, most [worryingly], that not every single case is being reported,” said Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director-General for Polio and Emergencies. Dr. Aylward told Liberians that the most recent WHO statistics on Ebola cases show that the number of cases in in their country have “not continued to decline; the case numbers have flattened out now and in some areas, they are starting to go up a bit.”"

"Doctors at the Nebraska Medical center say the third patient to be treated for the Ebola virus is in extremely critical condition. Doctors are using the maximum amount of support care possible in an effort to save Dr. Martin Salia's life. Medical director of the Bio-containment Unit, Dr. Phil Smith says it's an hour by hour situation. "He is extremely ill. We have multiple highly-trained specialists who are experts in their fields targeting his most serious medical issues.""

"Liberia has set a national goal of having no new cases of Ebola by Dec. 25, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf said in a radio address on Sunday, in a further sign that authorities believe they are getting on top of the virus."

"Dr. Martin Salia, a surgeon infected with the Ebola virus while working in Sierra Leone and later transported to Nebraska Medical Center for treatment, has died. Salia arrived in Nebraska Saturday after working at Kissy United Methodist Hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone, and initially tested positive for Ebola on Monday, November 10."

See link map for: "location and status of the known Ebola Treatment Units (as of 15/11/2014). Cumulative confirmed case totals and daily case movement/number (as of 15/11/2014) are shown for each district, with 7/14/21 day totals."

"Mali said on Monday (Nov 17) it had placed nearly 600 people who may have been exposed to Ebola under surveillance as the country battles to contain the spread of the deadly tropical virus. The west African nation has been scrambling to prevent a minor outbreak turning into a major crisis after the deaths of a Guinean imam and the Malian nurse who treated him in the capital Bamako. A friend who had visited the imam in the Pasteur clinic also died of probable Ebola, while a doctor at the clinic who contracted the disease was undergoing treatment."

"We will not close the border, but don't let anyone enter Mali without having washed their hands or taken their temperature,' the president told frontier medical workers. By way of example, the president then soaped his own hands and had his temperature taken. Health Minister Ousmane Kone, who accompanied the president on the trip, said '577 people were under daily observation', up from Sunday's figure of 442 people who were being monitored for Ebola symptoms. A government official said on Friday that two people who died after exposure to the imam's body were 'highly suspected' of having contracted the virus."

"The World Health Organization says while the number of Ebola cases appears to be declining, with reported cases in Monrovia falling from 75 to 25 daily, a mixed picture emerges in different counties across the country. The head of the Ebola Response team at the WHO Dr. Bruce Aylward, paid a four-day visit to Liberia to get a better understanding of the Ebola response activities on the ground. In a press statement, WHO says the transmission of Ebola virus disease is consistently high in Montserrado County while there are declines in Lofa County where zero cases have been reported for more than a week, according to Dr. Aylward."

"It warns that despite the expressed optimism, the latest observation does not mean that Ebola is under control in Liberia, noting that the virus has the potential to appear in waves, which can be mistaken for declining cases."

"A member of the 165-member medical team Cuba sent to fight Ebola in Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with the disease, state media reported Tuesday. Dr. Felix Baez Sarria is being treated by British doctors in Africa but he will be transferred to a special unit in Geneva at the recommendation of the World Health Organization, state media said, citing the Cuban Ministry of Public Health."

"A Sierra Leonean doctor died of Ebola on Tuesday, a medical source said, bringing to seven the number of doctors killed by the virus savaging the nation's healthcare system. Still recovering from years of conflict, Sierra Leone has seen at least 128 of its health personnel infected by Ebola as staff working in general wards and special treatment centres have been exposed to the disease. "Dr Michael Kargbo died this afternoon," said a senior health worker at the Hastings Treatment Center in the outskirts of Freetown, asking not to be named. There was no official comment. It was not clear how Kargbo, a 64-year-old dermatologist working at the Magburaka Government Hospital, was infected with Ebola as he was not serving in a frontline Ebola treatment unit."

"A Cuban doctor infected with Ebola while working in a Sierra Leone hospital is being flown to Switzerland for treatment. Felix Sarria, an internal medicine specialist, had been working at the Kerry Town Ebola treatment center, according to Sidie Tunis, a spokesman for the Sierra Leone Health Ministry. The doctor had a high fever and tested positive for Ebola on Nov. 17, Tunis said. Sarria will be treated at Geneva University Hospital, Switzerland’s Federal Office of Public Health said in a statement on its website."

"An official of the Ministry of Health has expressed concern that the migration of Ebola patients from Monrovia to other parts of Liberia is leading to the rapid spread of the virus. Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services Tolbert Nyenswah blamed the recent emergence of few hotspots of the Ebola virus in Grand Bassa and Bong counties on the movement of Ebola patients to those areas. He made the statement Tuesday at the Ministry of Information daily Ebola press conference held at the ministry in Monrovia."

Guinea: "EVD transmission is persistent in Guinea, although case incidence is stable or declining in several districts. A total
of 74 new confirmed and probable cases were reported nationally during the week to 16 November (figure 1). However, data are missing for one day (15 November). The vast majority of new cases were reported from the south-east of the country, near Liberia’s northern border"

Liberia: "EVD transmission is persistent in Guinea, although case incidence is stable or declining in several districts. A total of 74 new confirmed and probable cases were reported nationally during the week to 16 November (figure 1). However, data are missing for one day (15 November). The vast majority of new cases were reported from the south-east of the country, near Liberia’s northern border"

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense and widespread in Sierra Leone, with 533 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 16 November. Much of this was driven by intense transmission in the country’s west and north. The worst affected area remains the capital, Freetown, which reported 168 new confirmed cases (figure 3). Transmission remains persistent and intense across the country with the exception of the south east, with the districts of Bo (33 cases), Bombali (52 cases), Koinadugu (25 cases), Kono (12 cases), Moyamba (10 cases), Port Loko (95 cases), Tonkolili (29 cases), and Western Rural Area (102 cases), all reporting high numbers of new cases during the past week."

"Ebola has officially been eradicated from another African country -- the Democratic Republic of Congo -- the World Health Organization declared Friday, even if the overall fight against the deadly virus is far from over. The United Nations health agency cleared the DRC for Ebola because 42 days had passed since tests came back negative on the last person with the disease and there have been no other cases since. The WHO credited the central African country's leadership and effective coordination, including steps to monitor those with the disease and the people they had been in contact with, for the milestone."

"Sierra Leone announced a death from Ebola on Friday in the eastern city of Kenema—the epicentre of the outbreak which had gone more than three weeks without new infections. The case has dashed hopes that while Ebola continues to spread fast in the western area encompassing the capital Freetown, the eastern region where the crisis first emerged had beaten the virus. 'After zero cases reported for the past 26 days, the eastern town had an Ebola death involving a woman who had visited the city 10 days ago and started feeling sick,' health ministry spokesman Abass Kamara told AFP. 'She was treated at the Kenema government hospital but her Ebola status was not detected and she later died. When a swab was taken, it was found out that she was Ebola positive.' The spread of the virulent tropical pathogen appears to be slowing in neighbouring Liberia, which has set itself the goal of eradicating the virus by the end of the year. But transmission remains "intense" in Sierra Leone, according to the World Health Organization, with more than 1,200 lives lost since the first cases in the east. Kamara said 11 nurses who treated the new case had been placed in quarantine. 'We thought we were well on the path of getting out of the woods as far as Ebola is concerned but the news is shattering,' Kenema resident Marian Kaikai told AFP."

"Mali announced Saturday a new case of Ebola in a man who is fighting for his life in an intensive care unit in the capital Bamako. 'Among two suspected cases who were being tested, one was found negative, the other positive. He was placed in an isolation unit for intensive treatment,' the health ministry said in a statement. Mali, the newest country to be caught up in the epidemic, recorded its seventh Ebola death on Thursday. So far no one who has contracted the deadly tropical pathogen has survived."

"The Ebola outbreak is now 'stable' in Guinea, where the latest crisis began, the World Health Organization says. There were still some flare ups in the south-east, but things were improving in other prefectures, WHO co-ordinator Dr Guenael Rodier told the BBC."

"More than 1,200 people have died of Ebola in Guinea alone. However, Dr Rodier said that the situation in Guinea was now 'relatively stable'. 'When you look in more detail, you see that it's still quite active in the Guinea forest area [in] the south of the country,' Dr Rodier said. However, he added that the situation was 'actually improving in a number of prefectures, especially Conakry', where there was a fairly good understanding of how the disease was spreading. The WHO has faced criticism that it was too slow to respond during the start of the crisis. However, Dr Rodier said it was the first time there had been such a serious outbreak in West Africa, adding: 'Lessons have been learned.' Refused entry Guinea has not been as badly hit by Ebola as neighbouring Sierra Leone and Liberia."

"Reports coming in from Rome in Italy indicate that an Italian doctor working in Sierra Leone has tested positive for the Ebola virus.
According to a statement made public on Monday, 24 November, 2014, the affected doctor, who works for a non-governmental organization in the West African country, is being transferred to Rome for treatment.
It was gathered that the health worker is arriving overnight in Italy for treatment at the Lazzaro Spallanzani National Institute for Infectious Diseases in Rome."

"Liberia's president Monday urged her countrymen to double their efforts to reach the government's goal of having zero new Ebola cases by Dec. 25, a target some experts have described as highly ambitious."

"'We've set a pretty tough target. But when you set a target it means that you stay focused on that target and on that goal and then you double your efforts,' Sirleaf said during a ceremony marking the docking of a Dutch aid ship in the capital, Monrovia."

"The U.N. Ebola Emergency Response Mission will not fully meet its Dec. 1 target for containing the virus due to escalating numbers of cases in Sierra Leone, Anthony Banbury, the head of UNMEER, said on Monday. The mission set the goal in September of having 70 percent of Ebola patients under treatment and 70 percent of victims safely buried. That target will be achieved in some areas, Banbury told Reuters, citing progress in Liberia. 'We are going to exceed the Dec 1 targets in some areas. But we are almost certainly going to fall short in others. In both those cases, we will adjust to what the circumstances are on the ground,' he said in an interview. The death toll in the worst Ebola epidemic on record has risen to 5,459 out of 15,351 cases identified in eight countries by Nov. 18, the World Health Organization said on Friday. Almost all those cases are in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. Banbury said the areas of greatest concern are in rural parts of Sierra Leone as well as the city of Makeni in the centre of the country and Port Loko in the northwest and the capital Freetown."

"Mali has confirmed a new case of Ebola, bringing to eight the number of people who have fallen ill with the deadly disease in the West African country. A government statement issued Monday night said the patient had been placed in a treatment center. All of Mali's Ebola cases can be traced back to a 70-year-old imam who was brought to the country from Guinea, where the epidemic first began. Six of Mali's eight Ebola patients have died. The government said Saturday that another patient who tested positive was also receiving treatment and had been isolated. Officials are monitoring 271 people in a bid to contain the disease. The World Health Organization says Ebola has killed more than 5,400 people in West Africa, mostly in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea."

"Guinea said on Monday a cooler carrying a stolen blood sample infected with the deadly Ebola virus, stolen en route to a test centre, was unlikely ever to be found. A gang of robbers held up a taxi last week near the town of Kissidougou which was transporting the sample from central Kankan prefecture to southern Gueckedou, around 265 kilometres (165 miles) away. 'We are confident of not being able to find this cooler. With the media attention around the case, we are confident that the bandits would have got rid of it,' said Fode Tass Sylla, spokesman for the government's Ebola response unit. Tass said the virus would not have survived in the sample, although studies have shown that it can last in fluids for several weeks if it is not kept in direct sunlight. Guinea authorities have appealed to the robbers to return the sample, taken from a patient`s mouth shortly after they died. The incident has spread alarm over the safety of transporting samples of the highly virulent pathogen, which is estimated to kill around 70 percent of those it infects."

"An official in the Health Ministry says another Sierra Leonean doctor has been infected with Ebola, yet another blow to his country's fragile health system. Ebola has infected more than 15,000 people, the majority of them in West Africa, and a higher number of health workers than in any previous outbreak. That has made responding to the epidemic even more difficult in countries that had too few health workers to begin with. Abass Kamara of the Health Ministry said Tuesday that Dr. Aiah Solomon Konoyeima tested positive for the dreaded disease a day earlier. Konoyeima is a doctor at a children's hospital in the capital of Freetown and has been admitted to an Ebola treatment center in the city. Ebola has infected more than 500 health workers in this outbreak."

"The official death from Ebola over the past 3 weeks has more than doubled from 52 to 131 per 7day week. In the 7 day week of 4 to 10th November 52 people died of Ebola according to the NERC figures. This shows a death rate of 12.3%. This increased by 3.6% to 15.9% in the following second 7day week of 11 to 17 November with 85 deaths recorded. In the third succeeding 7day week of 18 to 24th November the figures increased heavily from 85 to 131 showing an increase of 46 deaths and a jump in the death rate of 18.1% from 15.9% to 34% over the previous 7day week. On the other hand the number of confirmed cases fluctuated from 421 in the week of 4 to 10th November to 533 for the week of 11 to 17 November showing an increase of 112. The succeeding week of 18 to 23rd November, the number of confirmed cases fell by 148 from 533 to 385. These figures do not in anyway tell the story most Sierra Leoneans would want to hear which is that Ebola is going away. The depressing revelation however is that in the last 21 days the death rates have more than doubled from 52 a week to 131 last week. This shows that the Ebola Virus Disease shows no sign of 'burning out' or reaching the peak before starting to come down as it has done in Guinea and Liberia."

"Reported case incidence is stable in Guinea (148 confirmed cases reported in the week to 23 November), stable or declining in Liberia (67 new confirmed cases in the week to 23 November), and may still be rising in Sierra Leone (385 new confirmed cases in the week to 23 November)."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 385 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 23
November, compared with 533 cases the previous week. Much of this was driven by intense transmission in the country’s west and north. The worst affected area remains the capital, Freetown, which reported 118 new confirmed cases (figure 3). Transmission remains persistent and intense across the country with the exception of the south east, with the districts of Bo (14 cases), Bombali (54 cases), Kono (16 cases), Moyamba (10 cases), Port Loko (72 cases), Tonkolili (31 cases), and Western Rural Area (55 cases) all reporting high numbers of new confirmed cases."

Case Fatality Rate: "As at 23 November, the case fatality rate among all patients recorded as hospitalized in the three intense transmission countries since the outbreak began, and for whom there is a definitive outcome recorded, is 60% in
Guinea, 61% in Liberia, and 60% in Sierra Leone. In a subset of 282 HCWs for whom a definitive outcome has been reported, the case fatality rate is 63%."

Health-Care Workers: As of 23rd November there have been 592 cases, 340 deaths.

"What could be another major outbreak of Ebola in Montserrado County is gradually evolving in the Paynesville vicinity specifically in the Rock-Hill Community as eight residents of the community have been tested Ebola positive according to medical sources."

"The outbreak started after some residents, especially close neighbors in the late Mr. Solomon King Pour of the Rock Hill Community was misled to attend the burial rites of the late Solomon are following a death certificate issued by a local health center in the area confirming the man had died of typhoid and High pressure."

"British researchers are to conduct trials in Guinea on a 15-minute Ebola test, the Wellcome Trust and UK government said in a joint statement on Friday. The prototype is six times faster than current tests and aims to speed up diagnosis, the London-based global research charity and the Department for International Development said."

"“A reliable, 15-minute test that can confirm cases of Ebola would be a key tool for effective management of the Ebola outbreak, allowing patients to be identified, isolated and cared for as soon as possible,” said Val Snewin of the Wellcome Trust. She said the test was designed to be suitable for remote field hospitals where electricity and cold storage are often scarce. Early detection of Ebola leads to better infection control as medics can identify and isolate confirmed cases faster and start treating patients sooner."

"The cumulative number of deaths caused by the Ebola virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone has reached 6,928 as of November 25, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported Friday. Among the three countries, 1,284 deaths have been registered in Guinea, 4,181 in Liberia and 1,463 in Sierra Leone. The number of confirmed, probable and suspected cases reached 2,123 in Guinea, 7,244 in Liberia and 6,802 in Sierra Leone, pushing the total number to 16,169. Previously, WHO reported 15,935 cases of Ebola, with 5,689 deaths. The current Ebola outbreak started in Guinea in December 2013, spreading later to Liberia, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Senegal. In October, WHO declared Nigeria and Senegal Ebola-free."

"Sierra Leone will soon see a dramatic increase in desperately needed Ebola treatment beds, but it's still not clear who will staff them, according to the top United Nations official in the fight against the disease."

"Sierra Leone is now bearing the brunt of the 8-month-old outbreak. In the other hard-hit countries, Liberia and Guinea, WHO says infection rates are stabilizing or declining, but in Sierra Leone, they're soaring. The country has been reporting around 400 to 500 new cases each week for several weeks."

"Mali has no more confirmed cases of Ebola after the last patient known to be suffering from the virus was cured, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita said on Saturday."

"Mali has registered eight cases of Ebola - seven of them confirmed and one probable - after the virus spread from neighboring Guinea, the World Health Organization (WHO) said this week. Six of these people infected have died, the WHO said. A further 285 people who came into contact with them are being monitored but have shown no sign of the disease."

"Two months ago, the World Health Organization launched an ambitious plan to stop the deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa, aiming to isolate 70 per cent of the sick and to have 70 per cent safe burials in the three hardest-hit countries— Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — by December 1.
Only Guinea is on track to meet the December 1 goal, according to an update from WHO."

"In Liberia, only 23 per cent of cases are isolated and 26 per cent of the needed burial teams are in place. In Sierra Leone, about 40 per cent of cases are isolated while 27 per cent of burial teams are operational.
With the target date looming on Monday, it looks almost certain WHO's goals will be missed, marking another failure in attempts to slow the biggest-ever outbreak of the deadly disease."

"A surge in Ebola deaths reported by the World Health Organization at the weekend was due to about 1,000 Liberian deaths wrongly ascribed to the disease that would be removed, WHO assistant director general Bruce Aylward said on Monday. "Liberia's figures came in but they've since said these were actually non-Ebola deaths that were reported as part of our Ebola deaths and we will be taking them off. So the whole world went up and the whole world will come down again," he told reporters. Data published at the weekend put Liberia's death toll at 4,181, up from 3,016 two days earlier."

"Today the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declares the Ebola outbreak in Spain over and commends the country on its diligence to end transmission of the virus. On 6 October 2014, the Spanish National Reference Laboratory confirmed the first human-to-human transmission of Ebola virus disease outside Africa in a healthcare worker. The healthcare worker had been part of a team at La Paz-Carlos III Hospital providing medical care for a person with Ebola virus disease repatriated from Sierra Leone on 22 September. On 21 October the healthcare worker tested negative for the second time and was consequently considered free of Ebola infection. Today, 2 December 2014, marks 42 days since the healthcare worker tested negative. There have been no further cases since the healthcare worker was confirmed to be negative for Ebola virus, so today the outbreak is over in Spain."

"Ebola-hit Sierra Leone has quarantined hundreds of thousands more citizens, it said Tuesday, sealing off a sixth district, with more than half of the country's population already under lockdown. Tonkolili, in the centre, was added to the growing list of districts which no one is allowed to leave or enter without special dispensation, in an effort to combat an outbreak which is spiralling out of control, with 1,400 deaths so far. 'The two-week lockdown was agreed in a key stakeholders meeting of cabinet ministers, parliamentarians and paramount chiefs of the district as part of efforts to stem the spread of the disease,' a health ministry spokesman said. The northern districts of Port Loko and Bombali were closed off indefinitely along with the southern district of Moyamba in September -- effectively sealing in more than one million people. With the eastern districts of Kenema and Kailahun already under quarantine, more than half of the population of six million -- in six of the nation's 14 districts -- now finds itself unable to move freely. Tonkolili, a district of around 400,000 people some 350 kilometres (220 miles) from the capital Freetown, is expected to end its quarantine on December 15, according to health ministry officials."

"Four health workers in Montserrado County have been infected with the Ebola virus, the head of the Incident Management System (IMS), Tolbert Nyenswah, has disclosed. This brings to over 300 infections among healthcare givers nationwide with more than 170 deaths since the Ebola outbreak in March of this year, according to the Health Ministry Situational Report. In an interview Monday conducted by LINA, Nyenswah said the four are being treated at the U.S. Army-run Monrovia Medical Unit (MMU) in Charlesville, Margibi County, set up specifically for health workers and foreign volunteers. According to him, the health workers did not get infected at an Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU), but at private facilities or homes where they cared for suspected patients without proper use of personal protective equipment (PPE). 'The new infections of these health workers should constitute a somber reminder to Liberians that Ebola is still in the country and people should stop playing doctor, but rather report all forms of illnesses to the hospital,' he said."

"Dozens of youths in the Guinean capital Conakry staged an angry protest against a new Ebola treatment centre on Thursday, halting the launch of the construction project, according to an AFP reporter on the scene. Prime Minister Mohamed Said Fofana was about to lay the symbolic first stone for the clinic when a crowd appeared, chanting slogans in Susu, a local language. 'We do not want Ebola in our neighbourhood! We fear Ebola! Do not pollute our environment,' they shouted. Guinean officials tried to talk down the ringleaders as the gathered dignitaries left, but the protesters escalated their demonstration, wrecking a gazebo, and scattering chairs and sound equipment. Representatives from medical aid agency Doctors Without Borders, which was slated to run the centre, were evacuated along with a few remaining dignitaries."

"The United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) on Thursday said that a member of its military personnel has tested positive for the Ebola Virus Disease, a UN spokesman told reporters here, adding that the patient is receiving treatment at an Ebola Treatment Unit in Monrovia, the capital of the West African country. The head of the Mission, Karin Landgren, said on Thursday that 'UNMIL had taken immediate steps to prevent further transmission'."

"'In line with established the World Health Organization (WHO) protocols, the Medical team of UNMIL has conducted an immediate and robust contact tracing to ensure that all those who came into contact with the individual while he was symptomatic have been assessed and quarantined,' Dujarric said. 'Sixteen contacts have been identified to date,' he said. 'All areas where the individual is known to have been while symptomatic have now been decontaminated.' 'This is the third case of Ebola in the mission -- one previous confirmed case and another probable case, which could not be confirmed, both resulted in the deaths of the staff members on 13 October and 25 September, respectively,' said the spokesman."

"Guinea Bissau will reopen its border with Guinea Conakry in 'the next five days', according to Prime Minister, Domingos Simoes Pereira on Thursday...To date, no case of Ebola has been reported in Guinea Bissau. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had during its meeting on 6 November in Accra, asked the reopening of borders with Ebola affected countries including Guinea Conakry, Liberia and Sierra Leone to avoid stigmatization of the population."

"Both Western Area Districts have recorded 2,223 Ebola cases, about one-third of the country's [Sierra Leone] total of 6,132 as at yesterday (3 December), making them the hottest Ebola spots in the country."

"Hon. Claude Kamanda, representing Constituency 095 in the Western Rural District, said in a meeting held at Committee Room 1 in Parliament with the Western Area District Medical Officer that it was disheartening to see transmission rate of Ebola spike in the Western Area, which includes the capital Freetown. 'The disease has reached a stage in the Western Area that now requires drastic measures. It is but expedient to fight Ebola with all our powers or strengths,' Hon. Kamanda said. He requested the District Medical Officer to make arrangements for the deployment of twenty-one contact tracers, surveillance officers and monitors to each of the 20 constituency MPs in the Western Area."

"Health authorities in Monrovia have reported a fresh outbreak of the Ebola virus in several communities in the capital Monrovia.The head of the Ebola Incident Management Team at the health ministry, Tolbert Nyenswah, named communities currently considered hotspots of Ebola in the country as New Kru Town and Clara Town in western Monrovia and the northern Monrovia suburb of Barnersville. Mr. Nyenswah told journalists in the capital Monrovia Friday that Ebola Treatment Units in Monrovia are registering between 10 and 15 confirmed cases of the disease every day."

"He attributed the increase in new cases to the complacency of residents due to the reported decrease in Ebola cases in the country in late October and the refusal of people to adhere to preventive measures outlined by health authorities to contain the spread of the disease. He disclosed that Liberians have once again returned to unsafe burial practices in Montserrado County, saying unlike in the past, family members of deceased persons have on numerous occasions refused to turn over the corpses of their dead relatives to the Ebola Burial Team, noting that this partly accounts for the increase in new cases in the county. He said under the circumstances, it would be impossible to meet President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf’s target of zero cases by Christmas. He also disclosed that Montserrado, Bong, Margibi and Grand Cape Mount Counties are the counties in Liberia experiencing fresh outbreaks of Ebola, but said all is being done by health authorities and partners to bring the situation under control."

"17,256 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of EVD have been reported in the three most affected countries, where there have been 6,113 reported deaths."

"In Liberia, Grand Cape Mount county continues to present a worrying trend, with small outbreaks reported in the community area of Welequa. 6 cases were admitted at the Tubmanburg ETU, but the local community reports more cases in the nearby villages. In response to the recent developments in Grand Cape Mount area, WHO is looking into transferring-in the mobile lab from Lofa county."

"Two doctors died of Ebola in Sierra Leone on Friday, a government and a hospital source said, bringing to 10 the number of doctors killed in the country by the virus. The worst Ebola outbreak on record has torn through some of West Africa's weakest health systems, killing nearly 350 medical personnel, including 106 in Sierra Leone, which is still rebuilding from years of war in the 1990s. 'We are devastated at this haemorrhaging of our healthcare workers,' a senior health ministry official told Reuters, asking not to be named. There was no immediate comment from authorities but the sources named the two dead doctors as Dr Dauda Koroma and Dr Thomas Rogers. It is not clear how the men were infected as they were not working on the frontline in an Ebola clinic."

"Sierra Leone says between 80 and 100 new cases of Ebola are being reported every day and it desperately needs over 1,000 beds to treat victims in the country now facing the most serious outbreak of the disease. Sierra Leone's Finance Minister Kaifalah Marah painted a grim picture to the U.N. Economic and Social Council Friday of the challenges facing the West African nation, which failed to meet a goal of isolating 70 percent of Ebola patients and safely burying 70 percent of victims by Dec. 1. The two other hard-hit countries, Liberia and Guinea, did meet the deadline, and the U.N.'s Ebola chief Dr. David Nabarro said the number of new cases in Liberia has dropped from 60 per day in September to 10 per day."

"The intense transmission of new Ebola virus disease (EVD) cases has not reduced in Sierra Leone. The country is now reporting over 6,130 confirmed cases, an increase of almost 540 cases since the last reporting period. The outbreak, continues to surge in the western and northern parts of the county – mainly the Western Area – both Urban and Rural, Port Loko and Bombali. The past week has also seen a spike in cases in Tonkolili and Kono. In an effort to contain the outbreak, Tonkolili in the centre of the country, has become the sixth district to enforce quarantine. Unlike Tonkolili which is expected to end its quarantine on 15 December 2014, Bombali, Kailahun, Kenema, Moyamba and Port Loko remain under indefinite quarantine. Due the quarantine, almost 2.9 million people cannot leave or enter a district without a special pass issued by the government. The quarantines have increased tensions among the population and security personnel working at the checkpoints. Unsafe burials, including the washing of dead bodies, late reporting and lack of isolation continue to be the major factors in the high rates of transmission across the country, especially in Freetown and in rural areas in the hotspot districts. The capital, Freetown, remains the worst affected."

"The government estimates that around 22 percent of cases are children (0-17 years). To date, the UNICEF-led Family Tracing and Reunification (FTR) network has identified 9,524 children as being directly affected by the Ebola crisis (4,826 girls and 4,698 boys), including 4,349 children having lost one or both parents to EVD. This is an increase of 2,474 affected children from the previous reporting period."

"As infection rates in Liberia and Guinea begin to stabilize, Sierra Leone has now recorded the highest number of cases, and Sierra Leoneans have been asking why the disease is picking up pace there and some have lashed out at the British response. In particular, the charity Save the Children, which is running the first U.K.-built treatment center to open, has been criticized for a slow and disorganized rollout."

"Junior doctors in Sierra Leone went on strike Monday to demand better treatment for health workers infected with Ebola, a health official said. The association representing junior doctors asked the government to make sure life-saving equipment, like dialysis machines, is available to treat infected doctors. The government has promised that a new, fully equipped unit is opening soon near the capital. But the doctors began their strike anyway, according to Health Ministry spokesman Jonathan Abass Kamara. Ten of the 11 Sierra Leonean doctors who have become infected have died. Ebola has killed more than 6,300 people, including hundreds of health workers. Throughout the outbreak in West Africa, health care workers have periodically gone on strike to demand better protection or higher pay. In an effort to make sure health workers get top-notch treatment, special centres dedicated to their care have already opened in Liberia and Sierra Leone."

"Ebola is still spreading quickly in western Sierra Leone and deep in the forested interior of Guinea and more foreign health workers are needed to help tackle the epidemic, a senior U.N. official said on Tuesday. The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in West Africa has risen to 6,331 in the three worst hit countries, with Sierra Leone overtaking Liberia as the country with the highest number of cases, World Health Organization figures showed on Monday. 'We know the outbreak is still flaming strongly in western Sierra Leone and some parts of the interior of Guinea. We can't rest, we still have to push on,' said David Nabarro, the U.N. Secretary General's special envoy for Ebola."

"Treatment centres are still opening in Sierra Leone and need expert staff, he told a news briefing in Geneva. The deadly virus is spreading particularly in Sierra Leone's capital of Freetown and Port Loko "where there is a need for a much more intense response", said Nabarro, a veteran public health expert. 'The increase in transmission in western Sierra Leone is a reflection of the fact that communities there have yet to fully embrace the outbreak and to take action to avoid infection themselves,' he added. The second 'troublesome' area is the northern part of Guinea's interior, a region known as Guinea Forestiere, he said. 'We have been working very closely with Mali to try to make sure if cases perchance cross the border that they can be dealt with very quickly.' 'We do need to keep making it clear that people are needed and needed urgently ... Every day we wake up and realise the enormity of the job ahead,' Nabarro said."

"Reported case incidence is slightly increasing in Guinea (103 confirmed and probable cases reported in the week to 7 December), declining in Liberia (29 new confirmed cases in the 3 days to 3 December), and may still be increasing in Sierra Leone (397 new confirmed cases in the week to 7 December)."

Guinea: "The previously reported surge of new cases in the eastern district of N’Zerekore (4 new confirmed cases in the week to 7 December) appears to have abated, although transmission in the neighbouring district of Macenta (15 new confirmed cases; 15 in the previous week) continues to be intense. There have also been reports of resistance among some communities in Macenta to contact tracing. Several districts in central and northern Guinea have reported persistent transmission...Persistent transmission in these areas is of particular concern, because the local populations are likely to seek
treatment in the north, and in neighbouring Mali in particular, rather than at existing facilities in the southeastern districts of Gueckedou (2 new confirmed cases in the week to 7 December) and Macenta."

Liberia: "Case incidence has decreased over the past 4 weeks, with 5 districts (counties) reporting new cases in the 3 days to 3 December. A total of 29 confirmed cases were reported in the 3 days to 3 December. The district of Montserrado, which includes the capital, Monrovia (figure 2), reported 15 confirmed cases, and accounted for more than half of all confirmed cases nationally over the reporting period."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 397 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 7
December (3 times as many as Guinea and Liberia combined). The worst affected area remains the capital, Freetown, which reported one-third (133) of all new confirmed cases (figure 3). Transmission remains persistent and intense across the country with the exception of the south, with the districts of Bo (14 cases), Bombali (57 cases), Kambia (10 cases), Kono (24 cases), Koinadugu (2 cases), Moyamba (10 cases), Port Loko (76 cases), Tonkolili (13 cases), and Western Rural Area (57 cases) all reporting high numbers of new confirmed cases."

"The Ebola response in Sierra Leone has been dogged by strikes by healthcare staff over pay and working conditions. Despite government claims that it had reached a deal with junior doctors, Dr Jeredine George, president of the Junior Doctors' Association, told Reuters that its members would strike for a fourth day on Thursday. They are demanding a specialised Ebola treatment clinic for Sierra Leonean doctors, 10 of whom have died since the outbreak began. Deputy Health Minister Madinatu Rahman has said plans are underway to get such a clinic set up this month."

"Mali has no remaining cases of the Ebola virus as the last patient in the country has recovered and left hospital, the Ministry of Health said on Thursday."

"'The only remaining case in treatment has recovered and has been released today so there are no more people sick with Ebola in Mali,' said Ministry of Health spokesman Markatié Daou.
Mali is yet to be officially declared Ebola-free, a status acquired by Nigeria and Senegal, two other countries that had cases of the virus earlier this year."

"As national statistics indicate a sharp decrease in the number of Ebola cases in the country, Grand Bassa is predicting an "Ebola free Christmas" celebration this year.
According to the County's Superintendent, Madam Etweda S. Cooper, Grand Bassa County is getting sophisticated in combating the Ebola virus to the point where every citizen of the county is getting involved in the fight.
In an exclusive Daily Observer interview recently, Madam Cooper bragged of securing five ambulances, the Chinese medical supply of Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) and other financial and moral support from companies and individuals including, but not limited to Arcelor Mittal and other corporate entities."

"The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in the three worst-hit countries in West Africa reached 6,583 as of Dec. 10, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. Updated figures on the WHO website showed that 18,188 cases have been recorded in the three nations in the worst outbreak of the disease on record."

"A man who entered Guinea-Bissau from neighbouring Guinea the day after the border reopened is being treated for suspected Ebola, a medical official said on Friday. The traveller was running a temperature and put under surveillance as he tried to pass through the Fulamori border crossing on Wednesday. He took advantage of lax security among border guards to escape observation and boarded a bus headed for the eastern city of Gabu, where he was apprehended."

"In addition to the ban on gatherings, Sierra Leonean authorities are also planning what they have called a "surge" in their response in and around the capital Freetown, aimed at stemming the increasing rise of Ebola infections. For several weeks, most of the new infections have been showing up in and around Freetown. At least more than five areas in the far west and far east of Freetown will be particularly targeted where epidemiologists say sick people still refuse to report to treatment centers. Data published by WHO on Friday showed that there were some 8,086 cases in Sierra Leone, with nearly 1,900 deaths."

"Liberia has begun treating Ebola patients with serum therapy - a treatment made from the blood of recovered survivors. Doctors hope the experimental treatment could help combat the virus that has been sweeping West Africa and killing thousands of people."

"More than 6,800 people have now died from the Ebola virus, almost all of them in west Africa, the World Health Organization said Monday. The UN health agency reported that as of December 13, there had been 18,464 cases of infection from the deadly virus in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, and 6,841 people had died. WHO did not provide an update of cases in other countries, but last week said the death toll remained the same: six in Mali, one in the United States, and eight in Nigeria, which was declared Ebola free in October. Spain and Senegal, which have both been declared free from Ebola, meanwhile counted one case each, but no deaths."

"Mali has released from quarantine the last 13 people being monitored for Ebola, and the country could be declared free of the virus next month if no further cases are recorded, the World Health Organization said on Tuesday."

"Sierra Leone is planning a house-to-house search for hidden Ebola cases in the capital and surrounding areas in an effort to stem the disease's rampant spread, the government said Tuesday. The government has periodically restricted movements into and out of hot spots in order to slow Ebola infections. In September, it locked down the entire country to look for sick people. With the disease now spreading fastest in Sierra Leone, authorities are ramping up their response. In a statement Tuesday, President Ernest Bai Koroma said officials will begin a house-to-house search Wednesday for sick people in the Western Area, which includes Freetown. It was not clear, however, if people had to stay in their homes and, if so, for how long. More than half of new infections are now occurring in the capital and its surrounding areas, the statement said."

"Ebola surveillance teams fanned out Wednesday in Sierra Leone's capital to search every house for sick people, as the president imposed new restrictions on movement and gatherings in a bid to stop the disease's spread. President Ernest Bai Koroma launched the 14-day "Operation Western Area Surge" in a national broadcast, promising that treatment beds, labs and ambulances are ready to handle any new cases. He reiterated that Christmas and New Year's celebrations are canceled and also banned all public gatherings during the holidays and movement between districts."

Health Care Workers: As of the 14th of December there have been 649 cases among HCWs and 349 deaths.

Guinea: "A total of 76 new confirmed cases were reported nationally during the week to 14 December (figure 1). The
national trend in Guinea has been fluctuating since September, with between 75 and 148 confirmed cases
reported each week. There is no clear upward or downward trend in national case incidence."

Liberia: "Case incidence has been declining at a national level, with 6 districts reporting new confirmed or probable cases in
the week to 14 December. A total of 8 confirmed cases were reported, but this case count accounts for only two
days."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 327 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 14
December. While there are signs from the country situation reports that the increase in incidence has slowed and
the incidence may no longer be increasing (figure 3), the country reported the highest number of confirmed cases
in epidemiological week 50. Transmission is most intense and persistent in the western and northern districts of
the country. The capital, Freetown, accounted for 125 of all new confirmed cases. Other western districts
reporting new confirmed cases include Port Loko (56), Western Rural Area (52), Bombali (23) and Kambia (11).
WHO, UN partners and the Government of Sierra Leone have implemented the Western Area Surge, an operation
to intensify efforts to curb the disease in the western parts of the country. The response targets Freetown and
neighbouring areas to break chains of transmission, and increase the number of beds to ensure patients with
clinical symptoms of EVD are isolated and receive appropriate treatment."

Case Fatality: "The cumulative case fatality rate in the three intense-transmission countries among all probable and confirmed cases for whom a definitive outcome is recorded is 70%. For those patients recorded as hospitalized, the case
fatality rate is 60% in each of Guinea and Sierra Leone and 58% in Liberia (tables 3–5)."

"One of Sierra Leone's most senior physicians died Thursday from Ebola, the 11th doctor in the country to succumb to the disease, a health official said. Ebola has killed more than 350 health workers in West Africa, depleting the ranks of doctors and nurses in countries that already had too few to begin with. Because Ebola is spread through bodily fluids, it is only transmitted through close contact. It is often called the 'caregivers' disease' because those infected are typically family members caring for the sick or health workers treating them. Dr. Victor Willoughby tested positive for Ebola on Saturday and was being treated at a clinic near the capital run by the medical charity Emergency, said Dr. Brima Kargbo, the country's chief medical officer. 'Dr. Victor Willoughby was a mentor to us physicians and a big loss to the medical profession,' said Kargbo. 'He has always been available to help junior colleagues.' The 67-year-old died Thursday morning, just hours after an experimental drug arrived in the country for him."

"In neighboring Guinea, a fire destroyed medicine crucial to fighting Ebola. The fire engulfed a warehouse at the Conakry airport and burned everything inside, said Dr. Moussa Konate, head of logistics for Guinea's Ebola response. He could not immediately say how much had been lost. The world's largest Ebola outbreak has drawn a massive international response, and supplies, including everything from rubber gloves to ambulances, have poured into West Africa."

"With the Christmas and New Year celebrations just a few days away, the deadly Ebola virus is said to be raging in several towns and villages in Guinea bordering Nimba, posing a serious threat to lives and normal activities in Nimba County. The Daily Observer has learned that close to 20 persons died of Ebola in two Guinean villages close to the Liberian border and the Arcelor Mittal concession area. In the Guinean town of Nyanizoo, 13 persons allegedly died from Ebola within a week, while in Teo town, also in Guinea, five persons suspected of Ebola died. Teo and Nyanizoo are located at the border with Liberia around the Yarmin Administrative District, where Yekepa is situated. According to residents of Yekepa, relatives of those who died in Teo continue to cross over to Guinea to sympathize with their bereaved family."

"People living around the border are blaming the national security for not doing enough to man the border and prevent illegal crossings. Most of the border posts near the concession areas and other parts of Nimba's border with Guinea are said to be still active despite the closure of the border."

"The latest data reflect more than 140 new deaths since the last update, posted by the WHO barely three days earlier. The epidemic, centred in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is the world's worst ever outbreak of the hemorrhagic fever. Sierra Leone accounts for the most cases, 8,939, while Liberia has 7,830 and Guinea 2,571. But Sierra Leone's death toll of 2,556 is much less than the 3,376 recorded in Liberia, leading some health experts to question the credibility of the figures reported by Freetown."

"Liberia 'has the upper hand against the virus,' he said. But in parts of Monrovia, disease detectives are having trouble tracking down cases because some patients are heading to Ebola treatment units hours outside the city. One family, believing that treatment outside the capital was safer, took a six-hour taxi ride to an ETU, potentially exposing the taxi driver and others, he said."

"In Sierra Leone, the challenges 'remain very extensive,' with at least 10 confirmed deaths a day from Ebola, he said. Fear of Ebola has also scared pregnant women and others with malaria and pneumonia from seeking treatment at hospitals. But Frieden said that if the global response remains strong, Freetown and the western parts of the country 'should see a significant decrease in cases' within the next few weeks."

"In Guinea, Frieden traveled to the remote area that was the epicenter of the outbreak a year ago and was encouraged to see an Ebola treatment unit and a decrease in the caseload. But in the capital of Conakry, 'one of the scariest things I heard' came from a Doctors Without Borders team leader, who told Frieden that for the first time since the outbreak, they recently had more patients than isolation beds."

"The discharge of the last Ebola patient from Sierra Leone's Kailahun district, has further heightened hopes that the increase in incidence of the disease in the country is slowing down. The District Medical Officer of Kailahun, James Squire, on Monday announced the discharge of the last Ebola patient from the District's case management centre. 'In more good news from Sierra Leone, the Kailahun district has recorded zero infection for several weeks,' Mr. Squire declared."

"The District Medical Officer (DMO) for Pujehun District, Dr. David Bome has told the Awareness Times that they have gone for over three weeks without any Ebola case. Via telephone interview on 23rd December 2014, Dr. Bome disclosed that Pujehun is on top of current Ebola situation owning to the participatory role play by all stakeholders including youths, women, the District Health Medical Team (DHMT) and the Pujehun District Descendants Association as well as the Government efforts."

"The Sierra Leonean government’s attempt to finally contain Ebola this Christmas with a five-day lockdown was dealt a setback after staff at a hospital went on strike. Pregnant women in Sierra Leone’s third largest town have been left without health care after doctors, nurses and support staff downed tools, claiming they are owed more than £70,000 by the government in outstanding Ebola hazard payments. The Magbenteh community hospital in Makeni sees around 30 pregnant women a day, but on Christmas Eve sent patients home and refused to admit new ones."

"A fourth member of the UN mission in Liberia, the country hardest-hit by the Ebola epidemic, has been hospitalised after testing positive for the virus. "This is the fourth case of Ebola in the mission and UNMIL personnel continue to mourn the deaths of two colleagues who died from the disease only three months ago," a UN statement said Wednesday, referring to the United Nations Mission in Liberia. Liberia tops the number of Ebola deaths in the world with 3,376 fatalities but has seen a clear decrease of new transmissions in the past month."

"The Ebola epidemic in West Africa is likely to continue through 2015, says Professor Peter Piot, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
“We need to be ready for a long effort, a sustained effort [for] probably the rest of 2015,” he told the BBC after returning from Sierra Leone.""

"The number of people killed by the Ebola virus has exceeded 7,500, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement Wednesday. “A total of 19 497 confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) have been reported in four affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone) and four previously affected countries (Nigeria, Senegal, Spain and the United States of America) in the seven days to 21 December (week 51). There have been 7588 reported deaths,” the WHO’s report said."

"“Reported case incidence is fluctuating in Guinea and declining in Liberia. In Sierra Leone, there are signs that the increase in incidence has slowed, and that incidence may no longer be increasing,” it said."

"The Sierra Leone government on Wednesday (Dec 24) declared a five-day lockdown in the country's north to step up efforts to contain the Ebola epidemic, while making an exception for Christmas. "Muslims and Christians are not allowed to hold services in mosques and churches throughout the lockdown except for Christians on Christmas Day (Thursday)," Alie Kamara, resident minister for the Northern Region, told AFP."

Guinea: "A total of 156 confirmed cases were reported in Guinea during the week to 21 December (figure 1), the highest
weekly case incidence reported by the country in this outbreak. This is largely due to a surge in cases in the southeastern
district of Kissidougou, which reported 58 confirmed cases – one-third of cases reported in the country in
the past week."

Liberia: "Case incidence has been declining at a national level since mid-November (figure 2), although transmission
remains intense in the country. A total of 21 confirmed cases were reported in 5 districts in the week to 21
December. The district of Montserrado, which includes the capital Monrovia, continues to experience the highest
EVD activity in the country, with 7 confirmed and 16 probable cases reported in the past week."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 315 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 21
December. While there are signs from the country situation reports that the increase in incidence has slowed and
the incidence may no longer be increasing (figure 3), disease transmission in the affected countries is currently
most intense in the western and northern districts of Sierra Leone. The capital of Freetown accounted for one-third of the country’s new confirmed cases, reporting 115 in the past week. The neighbouring district of Port Loko experienced a surge in new cases, reporting 92 confirmed cases compared with 56 the previous week."

Health Care Workers: As of the 21st of December there have been 666 cases among HCWs and 366 deaths.

"In yet another safety lab snafu at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as many as a dozen workers are being assessed for possible exposure to the Ebola virus. The incident occurred as a sample of the pathogen was transferred between labs. CDC officials said Wednesday one scientist may have been exposed to the Ebola virus, and as many as a dozen others are being assessed for potential exposure at the Atlanta headquarters. Officials said two experienced technicians made mistakes at the high-security lab, known as Biosafety level-4 lab (BSL-4), when material from an Ebola virus experiment was securely transported from the BSL-4 lab to a BSL-2. The material may have contained a live sample of the virus, a sample that should have remained in BSL-4 and stored in a freezer. The second mistake came when a BSL-2 lab technician should have recognized, via the color coding on the test tubes, the material was restricted to Level 4. That second technician is the person who could have been exposed and is now in the 21-day monitoring period, agency spokeswoman Barbara Reynolds said. The movement between the two labs is significant."

"The Incident Management System an arm of the Liberian government and partners responsible for the containment of the Ebola virus disease in the country has stated that the disease is growing at an alarming rate in Grand Cape Mount County. Speaking to Journalists at the Incident Command Center on Sunday, the head of Liberia’s Ebola response, Mr. Tolbert Nyenswah said a total of 49 cases have been reported in the area and this hike in the number of cases is due to failure to follow health procedures laid out by the government of Liberia. He said the county now joins Montserrado as the two counties with the most Ebola cases."

"Face Africa on Monday, December 22 launched a taskforce on Ebola response for a chiefdom and market in River Cess County. The Yarpah Town Chiefdom and Market Ebola Taskforce program launch was attended by several individuals including citizens the county and the team from FACE Africa."

"Dozens of new Ebola cases have erupted in Liberia, near the border with Sierra Leone, Liberian health officials warned Monday, marking a setback amid recent improvements.
The flare-up is due to a number of factors including people going in and out of Liberia and traditional practices such as the washing of bodies, said Liberia's Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah."

"Two thousand persons have been quarantined in Lofe Town, Margibi County, after a corpse transported for burial was confirmed by the County Health Authorities of being Ebola infected. The Margibi health authorities received a call that a body had been transported from Monrovia for burial, according to the Director of Community Health for Margibi County, Mr. Joseph J. Korhene. He said that the health team and Ebola Task Force, on arriving at the scene on December 18, took a specimen of the corpse that confirmed it to be Ebola positive."

"Scottish authorities say a health care worker who has just returned from Sierra Leone has been diagnosed with Ebola and is being treated in a Glasgow hospital. The Scottish government says the patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London’s Heathrow Airport, arriving late Sunday. The health care worker was admitted to a hospital on Monday morning.The only previous case of the often-fatal disease in Britain was William Pooley, a nurse who contracted the disease while patients in Sierra Leone. He recovered after treatment in London and returned to West Africa."

"The patient flew to Glasgow via Casablanca and London's Heathrow Airport, arriving late Sunday, the Scottish government said. The health care worker was admitted to a hospital on Monday morning after developing a fever. Sturgeon said the risk to the public is 'extremely low to the point of negligible' and that pre-planned steps would be taken to protect the public. 'Scotland has been preparing for this possibility from the beginning of the outbreak in west Africa, and I am confident that we are well prepared,' she said, adding that the patient is 'stable' and would soon be transferred to an isolation unit at the Royal Free Hospital in London. She said the patient, who is not being identified, had travelled on an internal British Airways flight from London to Glasgow on Sunday night and that the other 71 passengers and staff on that flight will be contacted. But she said the patient was not yet showing symptoms at the time and that people in that stage are much less contagious than they are after they exhibit symptoms, which include a high fever, diarrhea and vomiting. The patient became ill Monday morning and contacted health officials. She was soon admitted to the Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases at Gartnavel Hospital in Glasgow."

"A group of children playing near a tree nesting site for infected bats is to blame for the worst Ebola outbreak in history, a study has suggested. Published in EMBO Molecular Medicine, experts have said the most likely culprit for the Ebola outbreak, which has currently led to 7,842 deaths, are free-tailed bats – not fruit bats as had previously been believed. Transmission occurs from bites and scratches, and contact with bodily fluids, tissue, and excrement. On 26 December 2013, Ebola was identified in Emile Ouamouno, a toddler from the remote Guinean village of Meliandou."

"Officials believed the virus was transmitted to humans from hunting and eating bats – this practice can lead to infection of 'zoonotic' pathogens, with bats known for hosting more viruses than any other mammal. Scientists at the Robert Koch-Institute in Berlin, Germany, say the hunting and eating of fruit bats is not likely to be the cause of the current virus outbreak because this would have caused widespread transmission either concurrently with or before the death of Ouamouno. Findings of the study showed that while exposure to fruit bats through hunting and consumption in Meliandou is common, this may not be the cause of the Ebola outbreak. '[F]ruit bats seem an unlikely source of infection, as a food-borne transmission would have affected adults before or concurrently with the two-year-old boy [Emile Ouamouno] - the index case. This suggests a source of infection unrelated to food,' the study authors said. Villagers reported that children had been playing in and around a hollow tree near the home of the index victim. The tree was home to a large colony of free-tailed insectivorous bats, meaning the potential for 'massive exposure' to the creatures for the children. 'Though no one knew it at the time, the Ebola virus had found a new home in a highly vulnerable population,' WHO said."

"In Sierra Leone, a five-day Christmas lockdown in the north aimed at preventing new Ebola infections ended on Monday. However, Ebola infections have increased in the diamond-rich Kono district in the country's east, where the infection rates had been decreasing, the national broadcaster said. Quoting updates from the National Ebola Response Centre, it said Kono had recorded 21 new Ebola cases on Friday and Saturday."

"...the Medical Director at the Ganta ETU in Nimba County has disclosed that the deadly Ebola virus has killed a 12- year old girl in the Yekepa region. Disclosing this on the RKFM Community Radio in Ganta, the Medical Director assigned at the Ganta ETU, Dr. Paye Gbeinmie said Ebola has resurfaced in Yekepa thus, killing a 12-year old girl. He said the County Health Team has Quarantined 48 persons who came in contact with the little girl in Yekepa, Nimba County. In an interview with The INQUIRER via mobile phone from the Ganta ETU, Dr.Gbeinmie said that after few days the girl died from the deadly virus at the center. He told this paper that the mother of the girl was confirmed positive of the virus and is presently at the ETU undergoing medical treatment. 'For the past three months there has been no report of the deadly virus in the county,' Dr. Gbeinmie in formed the paper in Ganta over the weekend."

"Meanwhile, the 48 persons have been quarantined for 21 days by the County Health Team in the county. Our correspondent in Nimba County confirmed that the Ebola virus has killed over 75 persons in that county since March, 2014 while over 650 persons have contracted the virus."

Guinea: "A total of 114 confirmed cases were reported in Guinea during the week to 28 December, 2014 (figure 1). The
national trend has been fluctuating since September, and at present there is no discernible upward or downward
trend in the country."

Liberia: "Case incidence has been declining at a national level since mid-November (figure 2), although there was a slight
rise in case incidence in the past week. A total of 31 confirmed cases were reported in 4 districts in the week to 28
December, 2014, compared with 21 cases in 5 districts in the previous week."

Sierra Leone: "EVD transmission remains intense in Sierra Leone, with 337 confirmed cases reported in the week to 28
December, 2014 – more than double the number of cases in Guinea and Liberia combined. While there are signs
from the country situation reports that the incidence is no longer increasing (figure 3), disease transmission in all
the EVD-affected countries is currently most intense in the western and northern districts of Sierra Leone."

United Kingdom: "In the United Kingdom, public health authorities confirmed a case of EVD in Glasgow, Scotland on 29 December, 2014. The case is a health-care worker who returned from volunteering at an Ebola Treatment Centre in Sierra
Leone. The patient has been isolated and is receiving treatment in London. Public health authorities are now
investigating all possible contacts."

Health Care Workers: As of the 28th of December there have been 678 cases among HCWs and 382 deaths.

"The Scottish nurse being treated for Ebola in a London hospital is now in a critical condition, doctors said Saturday. A brief statement issued by the Royal Free Hospital said it was 'sorry to announce that the condition of Pauline Cafferkey has gradually deteriorated over the past two days.' The 39-year-old nurse was diagnosed with the deadly virus after returning to Glasgow on Dec. 28 from spending more than a month treating Ebola patients at a Save the Children treatment center in Sierra Leone. She was flown to London for treatment on a Royal Air Force Hercules and has been in a state-of-the-art isolation unit and surrounded by medical staff 24 hours a day. On New Year's Eve, Dr. Michael Jacobs, an infectious disease specialist who is part of the team treating Cafferkey, said she was sitting up in bed, talking and reading and had been able to speak to her family through protective screens. She was being treated with an experimental antiviral drug and given blood plasma from one of Europe's Ebola survivors. Jacobs said he was encouraged by her progress but warned that Ebola was highly unpredictable and her recovery was far from guaranteed."

"The Ebola lockdown in the northern Tonkolili district of Sierra Leone was extended on Sunday for two weeks as authorities stepped up the fight to contain the epidemic. The move comes as the government imposed 'additional screening measures' at Freetown International Airport after two workers apparently caught the disease. A five-day lockdown had been declared by the government across the badly hit north of the country last month. More than 70 cases of the virus had been confirmed in Tonkolili during a five-week lockdown there ordered by local authorities, District Coordinator Salieu Bah told journalists. 'The lockdown is extended for another two weeks to intensify monitoring efforts by all sectors in the district as we need this mopping up operation until Jan. 17,' he added. He said people had been 'reluctant to comply with health rules such as late reporting of suspected Ebola cases and undertaking secret burials.' Meanwhile, Health Minister Dr. Abubakarr Fofanah said screening of workers at the airport in Freetown will now be done 'on a 24-hour basis to detect any suspicion of Ebola on a worker or traveler.' The National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) said 'a case of Ebola was detected and confirmed by laboratory test on Friday involving a person who worked at the airport up to mid-December but had not worked since that time.' Another airport employee who had been in contact with the person has not come to work since Christmas Day. 'Due to these developments, additional measures have been put in place to enhance robust screening,' NERC said in a statement."

"An American health care provider working in Sierra Leone who had a "high-risk exposure" to the Ebola virus arrived at Nebraska Medicine on Sunday for "observation and possible treatment," the center said. "This patient has been exposed to the virus but is not ill and is not contagious," said Dr. Phil Smith, medical director of the biocontainment unit at the Omaha medical center. "However, we will be taking all appropriate precautions."

"Health authorities in Sierra Leone have raised concerns about patients being abandoned by their families at hospitals, even after testing negative for the deadly Ebola virus. "A lot of people have turned up in hospital as a result of 'Operation Western Area Surge'," Isatu Kamara, matron of the Connaught Hospital, capital Freetown's main government referral hospital, told The Anadolu Agency."

"In a recent address, President Ernest Bai Koroma announced plans to conduct house-to-house searches in the capital – a hot spot for rapid virus transmission – in hopes of identifying suspected Ebola infections. Kamara said people had been reporting to hospital in large numbers due to fears of being reprimanded by officials in the event that sick people are found in their homes. "There have been warnings of some form of punishment on radio programs, so families are turning sick patients into hospitals for fear of the consequences from government officials if these sick people are found at home during the ongoing search," she said."

"Nine counties in Liberia have not reported any new Ebola cases over the past 21 days, according to an official of the United Nations Mission on Ebola Emergency Response (UNMEER) Hans Rosling. According to Rosling, Grand Gedeh, River Gee, Grand Kru, Maryland and Rivercess counties in south-eastern Liberia, Grand Bassa County in eastern Liberia, as well as Gbarpolu and Bomi counties have reported no confirmed cases of the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) for more than 21 days, while Lofa County in northern Liberia has reported zero cases in more than 40 days."

"At the same time, according to Rosling, six counties- Cape Mount, Montserrado, Bong, Nimba, Margibi and Sinoe, have reported just over 70 Ebola cases in the last three weeks."

"A new burial site for Ebola victims was prepared in Monrovia on Monday as the Liberian government put an end to the cremation of the dead from Ebola. Cremation violates values and cultural practices in the West African country. The order has so disturbed people that the sick were often kept at home and, if they died, were being secretly buried, increasing the risk of more infections. At the new burial ground at Disco Hill, Christians and Muslims are now buried according to the religious traditions in separate blocks of the graveyard. "When they were burning people, at that time, because it wasn't our culture, we were not feeling fine (happy)," said Elijah Voka, one of the men working in graveyard. The head of the workers at the gravesites say they work daily to prepare around 25 graves a day for those who died of Ebola. A U.N. health agency said on Monday that 3,471 people have died from the disease in Liberia. The Ebola virus is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, vomit or feces."

"A clinical trial for a possible treatment for Ebola began on the 1st of January at ELWA 3, MSF’s Ebola Management Centre in Paynesville, Monrovia. Led by Oxford University from the United Kingdom, and funded by the Wellcome Trust, the trial aims to determine if the anti-viral drug brincidofovir is an effective treatment for Ebola."

"The Ebola epidemic has taken 8,235 lives out of 20,747 known cases of the haemorrhagic fever worldwide over the past year, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
There are signs that cases "may have levelled off" in Sierra Leone, but the former British colony still reported 248 new confirmed cases in the week to Jan. 4 and remains "by far the worst affected country at present", the U.N. agency said.
The WHO's latest weekly report was based on figures reported by national authorities in nine countries."

Guinea: "74 confirmed cases were reported in the 7 days to 4 January 2015 (figure 1). There is no discernible upward or
downward trend. However, EVD continues to spread geographically, with the western prefecture of Fria
reporting confirmed cases for the first time (figure 4). 19 districts have reported a confirmed or probable case
in the 21 days to 4 January"

Liberia: "Case incidence has declined from a peak of over 300 new confirmed cases per week in August and September
to 8 new confirmed cases and 40 probable cases in the 5 days to 2 January, 2015 (figure 2). The district of Montserrado, which includes the capital Monrovia, continues to account for most cases in the country, with 6 confirmed and 33 probable cases reported in the 5 days to 2 January. Twelve of 15 districts in Liberia did not report any confirmed cases during the 5 days to 2 January."

Sierra Leone: "There are signs that case incidence may have levelled off in Sierra Leone, although with 248 new confirmed
cases reported in the week to 4 January 2015, it remains by far the worst-affected country at present. The west of the country remains the area of most intense transmission. The capital, Freetown, reported 93 new confirmed cases, and the neighbouring districts of Port Loko and Western Rural reported 41 and 50 new confirmed cases, respectively, in the 7 days to 4 January. A total of 11 out of 14 districts reported new confirmed cases in the latest reporting period. In the east of the country, on the border with Guinea, the district of Kono reported 32 confirmed cases during the reporting period, and has reported 84 confirmed cases in the past 21 days"

United Kingdom: "In the United Kingdom, public health authorities confirmed a case of EVD in Glasgow, Scotland on 29
December, 2014 (table 7). The case is a HCW who returned from volunteering at an ETC in Sierra Leone. The
patient has been isolated and is receiving treatment in London. As a precautionary measure, Public health
authorities have investigated all possible contacts of the case. No high risk contacts have been identified"

Health Care Workers: As of the 4th of January there have been 838 cases among HCWs and 495 deaths.

"The organisation warned that cases continue to be under-reported and that the virus was spreading rapidly in the western parts of the country with capital Freetown reporting 93% of the new cases. The unchecked spread of the virus in the capital is seen as a result of the high-density living that makes contact tracing difficult...The western region of Fria in Guniea, meanwhile, reported its first case, reports Reuters. The capital Conakry remains the worst-affected district."

"The west African countries ravaged by Ebola have made great strides to stem the spread of the deadly virus but missed key 1 January targets towards halting the epidemic, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday. The United Nations set a 90-day target on 1 October to isolate and treat all Ebola patients in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, and to ensure safe burials for all bodies, which are highly infectious. WHO acknowledged in its latest situation report that the goals had not been met by the set deadline, but stressed that 'efforts to attain each target will continue until the epidemic has been brought to an end.' Meeting the treatment and burial targets, and meticulously tracing people who have been in contact with Ebola patients, are seen as essential to reining in the epidemic, which has infected 20 747 people in just over a year, of whom 8 235 have died. The three west African countries, which account for all but 15 of those deaths, have dramatically scaled up the number of beds available in Ebola treatment centres and now have the capacity to isolate and treat all patients, WHO said in its latest situation report."

"World Health Organization officials announced that three separate Ebola vaccines were ready for their Phase III trials, in an effort to get a cure to market before the deadly epidemic spreads further. “We are here to take stock, plan the next steps, and make sure that all partners are working in tandem. We all want the momentum and sense of urgency to continue,” said Dr. Margaret Chan, Director-General of WHO. The three companies with vaccines ready for the next phase of testing are Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, and Merck. Although some of the vaccines are barely exiting their first phase of trials, officials are itching to fast track both clinical trials and production of the vaccine in order to mitigate future outbreaks of the deadly disease among both civilians and health care workers alike."

"Sierra Leone President Ernest Bai Koroma plans on Friday to visit parts of the country that have been severely affected by Ebola. The move is part of the government’s efforts to combat the spread of the virus, according to Abdulai Bayraytay, spokesman for the administration. “The president will be traveling to lead the social mobilization [effort in] the rest of the country, starting in the north,” an trip which Bayraytay said includes flying to Kambia, then going by road to Port Loko, Lunsar, Makeni and Tonkolili. He said congratulations are likely in order for parts of the south, including Pujehun district."

"“The reason being,” he explained, “is they have not been recording any case of confirmed Ebola for the past 41 days. So, tomorrow if the trend continues and if we go by what World Health Organization is saying, then Pujehun should be declared Ebola-free.” He said the government has also decided to extend by two weeks a program to contain the virus in the western part of the country."

"Pujehun District, in southern Sierra Leone, yesterday (8 January) achieved the World Health Organization's benchmark of recording zero new Ebola infection spanning 42 days. The district first recorded a confirmed case of Ebola on 8 August, 2014 at Kortumahun village in the Malen Chiefdom, with the last confirmed case recorded on 26 November last year at Bendu village, also in Malen Chiefdom. In all, the district - which borders Kenema and Bo district, as well as shares common boundary with Liberia - recorded 31 confirmed cases, with 24 deaths and 7 survivors. Being the first district to record such a remarkable success in the fight against the dreaded Ebola virus disease, the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ) on Wednesday dispatched a group of journalists to engage stakeholders and in knowledge sharing on the strategies used to achieve the WHO benchmark of 42 days zero new case."

"Lofa County, the epicenter of the vicious Ebola virus that has killed thousands of Liberians as well as foreign nationals has made significant strives in the war against the virus.
For the past three months there has been no reported new cases of the deadly virus as intimated by Philip Michael Forkpa, Hygienist Supervisor of the Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in Foya now Community Case Center following the departure of the charitable organization MSF that had been running the center during the heat of the health crisis."

"'Thanks to the citizens who have remained vigilant and continue to observe all the health measures in every village and town because it was due to the resilience of the people of Lofa County that has caused the county to make such gains against the virus,' Forkpah stated."

"Margibi County Health Officer, Dr. Adolphus Yeiah, has revealed that there has been no new case of Ebola in Margibi County for the last 28 days. He said, however, the recent quarantining of Lonfay Town in Gibi District was due to a dead body that was transported from Monrovia to the town at night on December 17, 20 14. Yeiah said the dead body was dressed in ordinary clothing like a regular passenger and strapped with seat belt in the front seat of the taxi, which evaded the checkpoints to smuggle the body into the county. He said the County Health Team (CHT) through its partners received a tip-off but before they could reach the town the next morning, the people had already carried out an overnight wake-keeping and early burial. He said since Lonfay Town was quarantined for 23 days, there has been no new case arising from the town, and although there have been two deaths in two nearby towns, the victims tested negative for the virus. Dr. Yeiah said following the isolation of Lonfay Town, there are plans to lift the quarantine on the town as it continues to have no new case of the virus following the incident. He said consultations are ongoing with partners to ensure that the quarantine on Lonfay Town is relaxed on or before January 30, 2015."

"The rate of new Ebola cases in Liberia has plunged, Sierra Leone is beginning to turn the corner in dealing with the deadly virus and health officials are now focused on Guinea, a USAID official said on Tuesday. Guinea is "where we have our eye on at the moment," said Jeremy Konyndyk, director of the USAID office of U.S. Foreign Disaster Assistance. He said the rate of new cases in Liberia have dropped from more than 30 a day to single digits. Health officials cautioned that there is still a long way to go to eradicate the disease."

"All three countries hit hardest by the Ebola epidemic have recorded their lowest weekly number of new cases for months, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as the global death toll reached 8,429 out of 21,296 cases reported so far. Sierra Leone and Guinea both saw the lowest weekly total of confirmed Ebola cases since August 2014. Liberia, which reported two days with zero new cases last week, had its lowest weekly total since June, the WHO said."

"The international Red Cross says a local employee has died of Ebola in Sierra Leone, becoming the first Red Cross worker or volunteer to succumb to the disease there. The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said the male nurse who worked at an Ebola treatment center in Kenema, whom it didn't identify, died Tuesday and was confirmed to have been suffering from the disease. It said Thursday it is investigating how the man became infected and whether it happened at home or at work. The agency said 29 people who had contact with him are being monitored for symptoms."

"The Chief Executive Officer of the National Ebola Response Center Palo Conteh has said that the 2nd phase of the Western Area Surge (WAS) will commence Monday 19th January to 1st February 2014 after significant drop in the number of Ebola confirmed cases across the country. The continuation of the Surge the CEO said is to improve on the successes of the phase 1 which recorded 944 sick people of which 263 people were found to be Ebola positive within the Western Area. He said the Western Area Surge will help to bring out sick people in the homes with an extensive awareness campaign to reach out to more communities. Ward Councillors and other partners he added will also intensify their Ebola campaign in their respective communities."

"Liberia, one of the three West African countries worst hit by Ebola, could be free of the virus by the end of next month after success in curbing transmission, the government said on Thursday. 'There are 10 confirmed Ebola cases as of the 12th of January 2015 in the whole of the country,' Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads Liberia's Ebola taskforce, said. 'My projection is that, if we do everything possible, we can reach zero by the end of the February.' Liberia said this week that only two of the country's 15 counties still had Ebola cases."

"Mali's health minister declared the West African nation free of Ebola on Sunday following a 42-day period without a new case of the deadly virus. Mali recorded six deaths from Ebola, which, according to World Health Organization data, has killed more than 8,400 people in neighbouring Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia in the worst epidemic of the viral hemorrhagic fever on record. 'I declare on this day, Jan. 18, 2015, the end of the end of the Ebola epidemic in Mali,' Ousmane Koné said in a statement in which he thanked the country's health workers and international partners for their work to halt the outbreak. Mali's last infected patient recovered and left hospital early last month. At one point health officials had been monitoring more than 300 contact cases. Mali became the sixth West African country to record a case of Ebola when a two-year-old girl from Guinea died in October. It was close to being declared Ebola free in November before a second wave of infections."

"The head of the Ebola Incident Management System (IMS) Tolbert Nyenswah has disclosed that Margibi County will soon be enlisted into the ranks of counties reporting zero Ebola cases. “Margibi County has gone 19 days without reporting a single Ebola case and if the county continues for the next three days without reporting any confirmed Ebola case, it will be declared ‘Ebola free’ by the Ministry of Health,” Nyenswah said. He made the statement in Margibi County at the weekend at programs marking the lifting of the quarantine of Lonfaye Town in Margibi County. Recently, the Health Ministry announced that Margibi, Montserrado and Grand Cape Mount counties remain the only three counties in Liberia that are still reporting suspected Ebola cases, though none of the cases was confirmed. Nyenswah, who is also Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, noted that the dedication and tireless effort of the Margibi County Health Team as well as support from local and international partners is a key factor in the county’s success against the disease."

"Schools shuttered during the height of the Ebola crisis in Guinea began reopening Monday, but many parents were still too afraid to send their children to classes. Employees at the doors of schools in the capital were taking temperatures of everyone who showed up on Monday. Only those with normal readings were allowed to enter the building."

"Yet many pupils remained at home after rumors flew through the capital that masked workers were seen at a school building, raising questions about how safe the buildings were. "These masked people were spraying the classrooms without telling the school administration what the chemical was they were spraying and without saying why they were masked," said Idrissa Diallo, a spokesman for a local parents association. "So we won't be sending our children to school for the moment.""

"The schools would normally have reopened three months ago, but authorities had feared that large groups of children congregating could allow the Ebola virus to spread."

"The death toll of the current Ebola outbreak is now 8,594, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday, January 19. The WHO also added that the number of confirmed cases of the disease had reached 21,614. The new cases were reported from the three worst-hit countries - Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Sierra Leone is currently the country with the highest number of cases (10,306), while Liberia accounts for the most deaths (3,587) from the disease. Cases of Ebola are currently said to be on the decline in West Africa."

"Three priests from a church in Guinea were physically assaulted while visiting the village of Kabac on Tuesday, as locals suspected they were health workers who would expose inhabitants to the Ebola virus.
The villagers beat up the priests, who had planned to spray insecticide around the area, the BBC reported. They also vandalized the nearby town council building, setting fire to it after burning the priests’ car."

"Three homes in the Omega Community have been quarantined by authorities of the Paynesville City Corporation(PCC) after two women reportedly died from the deadly Ebola Virus Disease(EVD).
The Omega Community, which is located in Paynesville, outside Monrovia, is the community in which Africa tallest man-made structure was erected."

"Sierra Leone's President Ernest Bai Koroma on Thursday removed Ebola district quarantine measures intended to curb the spread of the disease, declaring 'victory is in sight' after a sharp drop in transmission. Since the worst outbreak on record began in West Africa over a year ago, Sierra Leone has recorded more than 10,340 cases, making it the country that has been hardest hit. But signs are growing that the tide is turning against the disease. 'We are now entering a transition phase. Given the progress being made against the disease, we must take action to enable economic and social recovery,' Koroma said in a televised address to the nation late on Thursday. Quarantine measures were previously in place in six of 14 districts in the poor nation of farmers, fishermen and diamond miners. Koroma, who aims to get to zero cases in the former British colony by the end of March, said that restrictions on trading hours in Freetown would also be eased. Individual households with known Ebola contacts will remain under quarantine. 'Though victory is in sight, we must not relent, we must continue to soldier on,' Koroma said, urging people to refrain from touching the sick and the dead. Ebola spreads via contact with bodily fluids of infected people such as blood and vomit. In the latest health report on Jan. 21, Sierra Leone reported just 9 new confirmed cases versus 60 cases daily in late 2014."

"Liberia, once the epicenter of West Africa's deadly Ebola epidemic, has just five remaining confirmed cases of the disease, a senior health official said on Friday, highlighting the country's success in halting new infections."

"A massive international response, including the deployment of hundreds of U.S. troops to build treatment centers, plus a public awareness campaign, contributed to a steep decline in infection rates. "We have five confirmed Ebola cases in Liberia as of today," said Deputy Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, who heads Liberia's Ebola taskforce. "It means that we are going down to zero, if everything goes well, if other people don't get sick in other places." Three of the remaining cases were in the capital Monrovia and the other two in Bomi and Grand Cape Mount Counties, he added. Nyenswah said last week that Liberia could be free of the virus by the end of next month."

"Malian authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) have announced the end of the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in Mali. This was after 42 days had elapsed after the last Ebola case tested negative in laboratory tests on December 6, 2014. In a statement the Malian Minister of Health and Public Hygiene, Mr Ousmane Kone, and copied to the Ghana News Agency by the WHO on Friday, officially declared Mali free of Ebola virus disease."

"A nurse who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone has made a complete recovery and been discharged from hospital.
Pauline Cafferkey is now free of the virus after more than three weeks in hospital, where she was critically ill for a time.
She said she is "happy to be alive" and thanked staff at the Royal Free Hospital in London who she said saved her life."

"Senegal reopened on Monday its land border with Guinea, the Interior Ministry said, five months after closing transport links in August to prevent the spread of the worst outbreak on record of the deadly Ebola virus. Senegal had already lifted in November a ban on air and maritime traffic with Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone - the three countries worst-affected by the epidemic of the deadly hemorrhagic fever."

"A new report by the Incident Management Team on Ebola has indicated that Grand Cape Mount County will soon join 13 other counties to be declared Ebola free. Liberia is striving hard to get to zero cases as the reopening of schools in the country is nearing. Speaking at the regular Ebola Hour at the Ministry of Information, Cultural Affairs and Tourism (MICAT) in Monrovia, the head of the Incident Management Team, Mr. Tolbert Nyensuah, said Grand Cape Mount, which recorded the highest number of new cases in recent weeks, has gone 12 days without any new case. According to Mr. Nyensuah, who is also the Assistant Minister for Preventive Services at the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, all those who came in contact with infected people have gone through a quarantined period of 12 days and are gradually improving without showing any sign of the virus. 'I want to announce to the Liberian people that Grand Cape Mount County has gone through a period of 12 days quarantined period without anyone showing any sign of the symptoms. They are gradually making progress to be on par with the other 13 counties that are of Ebola free,' said Minister Nyensuah. 'As we speak, there the county could be declared Ebola free within 11 days' time,' he said. But the Liberian government official noted that the situation is still difficult to deal with in Montserrado County owing to the huge population."

"Montserrado County is the only place in Liberia that is now the 'active place of the transport of the Ebola virus,' the head of the Incident Management Team (IMT), Tolbert Nyenswah, has disclosed. He said the fact that 13 counties have reported no new cases recently shows 'there is a drastic reduction in new Ebola cases in the country,' the Liberia News Agency reports. Nyenswah made the disclosure when he addressed the MICAT regular Ebola press briefing at the ministry Tuesday. He pointed out that Montserrado reports between one to two cases daily, citing the St Paul Bridge Community as the place still feared and where the last two cases were reported of late."

"The response to the EVD epidemic has now moved to a second phase, as the focus shifts from slowing transmission to ending the epidemic. To achieve this goal as quickly as possible, efforts have moved from rapidly building infrastructure to ensuring that capacity for case finding, case management, safe burials, and community engagement is used as effectively as possible. For the first time since the week ending 29 June 2014, there have been fewer than 100 new confirmed cases reported in a week in the 3 most-affected countries. A combined total of 99 confirmed cases were reported from the 3 countries in the week to 25 January: 30 in Guinea, 4 in Liberia, and 65 in Sierra Leone."

Guinea: "A total of 30 confirmed cases were reported in the 7 days to 25 January 2015 (figure 2), compared with 20 the week before. This is the first time this year that case incidence has increased in Guinea from week-to-week. Eight districts reported a confirmed or probable case during the reporting period (figure 2). The northern district of Mali, which borders Senegal, reported its first confirmed case (figure 1); a man who travelled from Liberia. Senegal has recently reopened border crossings with Guinea; surveillance in districts that border affected countries is being implemented."

Liberia: "Case incidence has declined from a peak of over 300 new confirmed cases per week in August and September 2014 to 4 confirmed cases in the 7 days to 25 January 2015 (figure 3), compared with 8 cases the previous week. All 4 confirmed cases were reported from Montserrado, the district that includes the capital, Monrovia (figure 1 and figure 3). The adjacent district of Bomi reported 3 probable cases."

Sierra Leone: "Case incidence continues to decline rapidly in Sierra Leone. There were 65 new confirmed cases reported in the week to 25 January 2015, compared with 117 the previous week and 184 the week before that. The west of the country remains the area of most intense transmission. The capital, Freetown, reported 20 new confirmed cases, compared with 30 the previous week. The nearby districts of Kambia and Western Rural reported 10 and 16 new confirmed cases, respectively, in the 7 days to 25 January (figure 1, figure 4)."

United Kingdom: "In the United Kingdom, public health authorities confirmed a case of EVD in Glasgow, Scotland, on 29 December 2014 (table 5). The case was a health worker who returned from volunteering at an ETC in Sierra Leone. The patient was isolated on 29 December and received treatment in London. On 23 January the patient tested negative twice for EVD, and on 24 January the patient was discharged. All contacts have completed 21-day follow-up."

"The World Health Organization says officials are now focused on ending the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak rather than just slowing the virus’ spread. In an update published Thursday, the U.N. health agency said the three most affected countries — Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia — reported fewer than 100 cases in the past week, for the first time since June. Still, WHO also reported that only 30 percent of new cases in Guinea are known contacts of Ebola patients, meaning officials have no idea how most patients are getting infected. In Liberia, that figure is 50 percent, while no data are available for Sierra Leone. The death rate for hospitalized patients is about 60 percent. The outbreak is believed to have killed more than 8,000 people since it started in March."

"Liberia said on Friday it would delay reopening schools for two weeks in order to better prepare safety measures against the Ebola virus, which has killed more than 3,650 people in the country but now appears to be receding. Liberian schools, shut since August due to the outbreak, had initially been scheduled to reopen on Feb. 2, but the education ministry said it had pushed back that date to allow parents and students more time to prepare. A ministry statement said it wanted to 'raise awareness about safety protocols, logistics and training requirements', adding: 'Actual teaching will begin on Monday, Feb. 16, 2015.' Some Liberian opposition parties and members of parliament had called for the reopening date to be moved to March 2, concerned that the Ebola epidemic is not yet fully under control."

"Public Health England have confirmed that a British healthcare worker has been flown home from Sierra Leone and admitted to London's Royal Free Hospital for Ebola testing. Professor Paul Cosford, PHE’s director for health protection and medical director, said: 'Our thoughts are with this person, who has been courageous in helping those affected in West Africa, and in preventing the wider spread of Ebola. 'We have strict, well-tested protocols in place for this eventuality and we are confident that all appropriate actions have been taken to support the healthcare worker concerned and to protect the health of other people.' The hospital said the individual is likely to have been exposed to the Ebola virus but has not been diagnosed with the disease and does not have symptoms."

"The Partnership for research on Ebola vaccine in Liberia or PREVIAL for short, and the Liberia Crusaders for Peace (LCP) in collaboration with the Liberia United States Joint Research Partnership has launched a new Ebola vaccine trial at the Redemption Hospital in the Borough of New Kru Town, outskirt of Monrovia."

"Despite tremendous efforts by the government of Liberia and international partners aimed at eradicating the deadly Ebola virus, it seems the fight is becoming difficult to reach an end as new cases of Ebola are again being reported in the country. For the past few days, Liberia, which was recording dozens of Ebola cases daily was only battling with the last five confirmed Ebola cases, but that record is now on a slippery path as five new Ebola cases have been reported in the St. Paul Bridge Community in Montserrado County."

"Margibi County Health Officer has announced a new Ebola death in the county following nearly one month of no new case.
Dr. Adolphus Yeiah told the Liberia News Agency Wednesday that the victim came from the St. Paul Bridge Community in Monrovia over the weekend, noting that he was seeking herbal treatment.
Dr. Yeiah said the victim (whose name is withheld) was taken to Gaygbah Town, Borlorla Township in Gibi District where he was later discovered to have died of the Ebola virus."

"The weekly number of new Ebola cases registered across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone rose in the last week of January, marking the first hike in 2015, the World Health Organisation says.
'Weekly case incidence increased in all three countries for the first time this year,' the UN health agency said on Wednesday."

"In total, 22,495 people have been infected with the virus across nine countries, and 8981 of them have died, according to the latest numbers."

Guinea: "A total of 39 confirmed cases were reported in the 7 days to 25 January 2015 (figure 2), compared with 30 the week before. This is the second week in a row that case incidence has increased in Guinea. 10 districts reported a confirmed or probable case during the reporting period (figure 2). An unsafe burial that took place in early January in the eastern prefecture of Lola, on the border with Côte d’Ivoire, has so far resulted in an outbreak of 11 confirmed cases. A further confirmed case in the northern prefecture of Siguiri, on the border with Mali, also originated in Lola. The north Guinean prefecture of Tougué, which also borders Mali, has reported its first 2 confirmed cases. Both cases are thought to have originated in the western prefecture of Dubreka."

Liberia: "A total of 5 confirmed cases were reported in the 7 days to 1 February (figure 3), compared with 4 cases the previous week. All 5 confirmed cases were reported from Montserrado, the district that includes the capital, Monrovia (figure 1 and figure 3). Nine districts in Liberia have not reported a confirmed case for over 42 days"

Sierra Leone: "Weekly case incidence increased for the first time this year, from 65 new confirmed cases in the week to 25 January 2015 to 80 new confirmed cases in the week to 1 February. The west of the country remains the area of most intense transmission. The capital, Freetown, reported 22 new confirmed cases, compared with 20 the previous week. The neighbouring district of Port Loko saw a resurgence of cases, with 36 new confirmed cases compared with 6 in the previous week (figure 1, figure 4). Western rural district saw a reduction in new cases, with 7 confirmed cases reported compared with 16 the previous week. A total of 9 out of 14 districts reported at least one new confirmed case in the latest reporting period. Bombali was the only district in the north of the country to report no cases. In the south, Bo, Bonthe, Kailahun, and Pujehun all reported no cases. Bonthe, Kailahun and Pujehun have each reported no confirmed cases for more than 42 days (figure 5)."

"A runaway Ebola positive has been tracked in a Lofa County town of Zigida, a local county official has disclosed. Zigida is a town in Zorzor District in Lofa County. According to Zorzor District Commissioner Mr. Henry Wolubah, who spoke with the state run Liberia Broadcasting System (LBS), the patient left her home in Monrovia to Lofa County few days before she was tracked by the district’s contacts tracing team. Mr. Wolubah said the woman, whose name is withheld, was tracked down following a massive contact tracing in the local town."

"The head for Liberia’s Incidence Management System, Tolbert Nyenswah, has disclosed that Lofa and Margibi Counties are faced with renewed threat from the Ebola Virus due to two separate cases that recently entered the two counties from Montserrado. Mr. Nyenswah, who is also Assistant Health Minister for Preventive Services, told a local radio talk show hosted on Hot FM Thursday morning, February 5, 2015, that Lofa has about 18 contacts just from a single case from Monrovia."

"Nyenswah lamented that suspected contacts left in Lofa and Margibi Counties by the two Ebola carriers from Monrovia “are the trouble” health workers are having right now and that is getting it difficult for Liberia to get to zero case. He said it was expected that by January and February 2015, Liberia should have had zero case of Ebola; but noted that regrettably, even at night, Ebola response teams have to be chasing Ebola contacts, who are running away."

"The number of people sick with Ebola fever has doubled in Guinea in the past week following the discovery of cases previously unknown to health authorities, a Guinea health official said on Friday. About two dozen new suspected and confirmed Ebola cases were recorded in the past two weeks, taking the total number to 53 as of Friday, Fode Tass Sylla, a spokesman for Guinea's anti-Ebola task force, said. Sylla said the increase was expected because health authorities were only now gaining access to faraway villages where inhabitants had previously prevented them from entering."

"The death toll from the Ebola outbreak in three West African countries reached 9,004, the World Health Organization said in a statement Friday. The U.N. health agency said that at least 22,525 people were infected with the deadly virus in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. Sierra Leone had the highest number of cases, with 10,792 patients reported to date. The highest Ebola death toll was in Liberia standing at 3,746, which is more than the 3,301 recorded deaths in Sierra Leone. In Guinea, 1,957 deaths were reported."

"Guinea's government has authorized the wider use of an experimental drug to treat Ebola in treatment centers after successful initial trials, officials said on Saturday. The expansion of the treatment comes as the number of people with Ebola in Guinea has doubled in the past week, reversing a broader trend of decline across the three worst-hit West African states - Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The experimental Japanese drug - Avigan, or favipiravir - developed by Toyama Chemical, a subsidiary of Japan's Fujifilm, has been tested by French and Guinean teams in southern Guinea since mid-December."

"The head of Grand Cape Mount County Health Team (CHT), Dr. Loraine Cooper, has revealed that the county has not recorded a new case of Ebola for more than two weeks now. The last Ebola case recorded was in mid-January, when 33 cases were reported with a number of deaths, according to the Liberia News Agency(LINA) correspondent in the county. Cooper made the statement recently at the County Ebola Taskforce coordination meeting held in Robertsport. She said the rapid reduction in Ebola cases is a direct result of the citizens’ adherence to the preventive measures introduced by government, contrary to the past when the measures were largely ignored, raising the number of cases."

"President Obama will announce that he is bringing home most of the U.S. troops deployed to West Africa to fight a deadly outbreak of the Ebola virus by April 30, the White House announced on Tuesday. The president will announce those plans at a White House event on Wednesday and also outline further steps the U.S. is taking to prevent Ebola cases at home. According to the White House, of the 2,800 U.S. troops who were deployed to the continent, about 1,500 have returned. After April 30, the U.S. will have 100 Defense Department personnel who will continue to work with local militaries in the Ebola response In a statement Tuesday, the White House touted the international community's effort to stop the Ebola outbreak but vowed to continue working until there were 'zero cases.' 'We are encouraged by the declining number of new Ebola cases in West Africa, but remain concerned about a recent increase in cases in Guinea, and an inability to further reduce case counts in Sierra Leone,' said the White House."

"West Africa recorded 144 new confirmed cases of Ebola in the week to February 8, the second weekly increase in a row highlighting lingering challenges to end the outbreak, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. Guinea reported 65 new cases, Sierra leone reported 76 new confirmed cases and Liberia reported three new cases, the WHO said in its latest update. "Despite improvements in case finding and management, burial practices, and community engagement, the decline in case incidence has stalled," it said. A year-long Ebola outbreak has now killed at least 9,177 people among the 22,894 cases recorded, mainly in the three worst-affected West African nations."

"The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has today set up a temporary centre to monitor children and parents infected with the deadly Ebola virus in Gueckedou, a forest region in Guinea. This comes after reports of resurgence of new Ebola cases in Guinea raised alarm."

"Sierra Leone said Friday it had placed hundreds of homes in the capital under quarantine, in a huge blow for its recovery from the Ebola crisis less than a month after it lifted all travel restrictions. 'Some 700 homes have been quarantined for 21 days in the tourism and fishing community of Aberdeen in the west of the capital Freetown, after the death of a fisherman who was later diagnosed Ebola positive,' Obi Sesay, of the government's National Ebola Response Centre, said."

"There were six new confirmed cases in the Freetown district on Wednesday. News of the spike is so disheartening especially after the announcement late last month of a major decline in the number of infected parties."

"About 9,000 people have died since the disease was first reported in the region in December 2013, prompting the UN to coordinate the international response and drug makers to quicken trials for a vaccine. While the spread slowed earlier this year, Guinea reported 65 confirmed cases in the week to Feb. 8, compared with 39 in the prior seven days, according to the World Health Organization. 'The health system will need considerable strengthening to provide basic services and respond more quickly and effectively to any future outbreaks,' Clark said. She will travel to Liberia on Saturday, where three confirmed cases were reported to Feb. 8. Next week, Clark will visit Sierra Leone, which had 76 cases in the seven days ending Feb. 8 from 80 in the previous week."

"Crowds destroyed an Ebola facility and attacked health workers in central Guinea on rumors that the Red Cross was planning to disinfect a school, a government spokesman said on Saturday. Red Cross teams in Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the organization said this week, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease. During the incident on Friday in the town of Faranah, around 400 km east of the capital Conakry, angry residents attacked an Ebola transit center and set ablaze a vehicle belonging to medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres. A Red Cross burial team was also targeted and forced to flee, said Fodé Tass Sylla, spokesman for the government campaign against the disease. "All this agitation aims to discourage our partners and to give the virus the upper hand. We won't accept that," he said. "Everyone must understand that the fight we are leading requires the engagement of all citizens." The number of new cases in Guinea nearly doubled last week to 64, according to World Health Organization data, jeopardizing a government plan to get to zero new cases by early March."

"Students in Liberia began returning to the classroom Monday after a six-month closure during the Ebola epidemic that left thousands dead in this West African country. In the capital, lines formed outside entrances where returning students' temperatures were being taken. Ebola's main symptom is a high fever, and only those who are sick can spread the deadly virus to others. Deputy Education Minister Remses Kumbuyah said more than 5,000 kits were distributed to schools that included thermometers and chlorine for hand-washing."

"The Liberian government on Tuesday said only six confirmed Ebola cases are currently in various Ebola Treatment Units across the country as of Feb. 16.
The Deputy Head of the Ebola response Incidence Management System (IMS), Francis Kateh, disclosed this to reporters while providing an update of the disease in the country.
Kateh said Liberia has recorded incredible progress in its fight against the virus.
But he however, warned against complacency in the struggle to overcome a disease that has claimed the lives of 3,846 Liberians from a total 8,864 suspected, probable and confirmed cases."

"Sierra Leone launched a door-to-door search Wednesday for "hidden" Ebola patients as the head of the United Nations announced the world was at "a critical turning point" in the crisis. Dozens of healthcare workers fanned out across remote parts of Port Loko district, east of the capital Freetown, after a spike in cases attributed to unsafe burials and patients being hidden from the authorities. "Teams of health workers backed by security personnel are trekking into outlying areas and knocking on doors of houses... to check whether people are telling us the truth about not hiding sick people," Morlai Dumbuya, a coordinator of the operation, told AFP. "So far we have not met any resistance and people are co-operating." The two-week operation follows a larger exercise in December, dubbed the "Western Area Surge", when hundreds of volunteers knocked on doors across the west of Sierra Leone."

Guinea: "A total of 52 confirmed cases were reported in the 7 days to 15 February 2015 (figure 2), compared with 65 the week before, ending a sequence of 3 consecutive increases in weekly incidence. Cases are concentrated in the west of the country. Forecariah and the capital Conakry reported 24 and 13 confirmed cases, respectively. The neighbouring prefectures of Dubreka (7 confirmed cases), Coyah (5 confirmed cases), and Boffa (1 confirmed case) also reported cases during the reporting period."

Liberia: "A total of 2 confirmed cases were reported in the 4 days to 12 February (figure 3). All confirmed cases were reported from Montserrado, (figure 2 and figure 4) and are linked to the same chain of transmission. Montserrado is the only county to have reported a confirmed case within the past 29 days (figure 5)."

Sierra Leone: "After a rapid decline, weekly case incidence has stabilized since the week ending January 25, at between 60 and 80 confirmed cases per week. A total of 74 cases were reported in the week to 15 February, compared with 76 confirmed cases the previous week, and 80 confirmed cases reported in the week to 1 February. The capital, Freetown, reported the majority of new confirmed cases (45), with the neighbouring district of Port Loko reporting 11 new confirmed cases; down from 28 in the previous week (figure 1, figure 4). A cluster of cases reported in a highly mobile fishing community in the Aberdeen area of Freetown is likely to lead to further cases. A response team is currently working to trace over 2000 contacts associated with the cluster. The western districts of Kambia (6 confirmed cases), Western Rural (7 confirmed cases), the central district of Tonkolili (4 confirmed cases), and the northern district of Koinadugu (1 confirmed case) also reported confirmed cases in the week to 15 February."

Sierra Leone (continued): "Community engagement remains a challenge in several areas of Sierra Leone. Four of 14 districts reported at least one security incident in the week to 11 February. In addition, 45 unsafe burials were reported in the week to 15 February, 20 of which were in the western urban area that includes the capital, Freetown. Over the same period, a total of 25 confirmed cases were identified after post-mortem testing of dead bodies found in the community."

"The World Health Organization (WHO) says a total of 833 confirmed health worker infections had been reported in the three intense-transmission countries; of which there had been 488 reported deaths. The WHO said in the week to February 15, a total of 128 new confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) were reported in the three Ebola endemic countries in West Africa – Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. According to the WHO Ebola Situation report, which was made available to the Ghana News Agency on Thursday, Guinea reported 52 new confirmed cases – a decrease from the previous week, and the first week-to-week decline since January 25."

"Liberia said Friday it was lifting nationwide curfews and re-opening borders shut last year at the height of the Ebola crisis, after the retreat of an epidemic that has killed thousands.
"President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has ordered the lifting of the curfew imposed nationwide. It takes effect beginning Sunday, February 22," a statement from the presidency said.
"She has also ordered the re-opening of all the country's main borders that were ordered closed during the Ebola outbreak.""

"After having borne the brunt of the ebola crisis at the start of the outbreak, Kailahun Distrist in the East of Sierra Leone has been ebola free for 66 days. In light of this, MSF has announced that it will close its ebola treatment center there to focus on other MSF centers in areas that still have cases. MSF Project Coordinator, Judith Hetellier had his to say about the closure; “MSF is proud to have been part of the fight against Ebola in Kailahun since June 2014. MSF has built an isolation unit at the Kailahun Government Hospital to protect healthcare workers and patients of communicable diseases. The isolation unit will be handed over to the people of Kailahun under the District Health Medical Team (DHMT) management together with the case management responsibility and we will keep a close eye on the District thereafter.” The 50 bed treatment center has been in operation in Kailahun since July 2014 "

"An orphanage run by a UK charity in Sierra Leone has been quarantined after one of its local staff was diagnosed with the deadly Ebola virus. Augustine Baker is said to be in a stable condition at a local treatment centre after becoming ill last week. St George Foundation orphanage co-founder Philip Dean told the BBC that 33 children and seven staff were now in isolation. Ebola has killed more than 9,300 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea."

"A Japanese anti-Ebola drug being tested in Guinea should be made available across West Africa after initial trials showed it halved mortality rates in some patients, the medical charity administering it said. Alliance for International Medical Action (ALIMA), which ran the trials of favipiravir in Guinea, said mortality rates fell from 30 to 15 percent in patients with a low to moderate Ebola count but was not effective on those with a high level of the virus. The level of the Ebola virus in a patient's blood is thought to be determined by the amount of time since infection as well as age and genetics."

""We think this is a sufficiently encouraging sign for it to be made available to Ebola patients more widely," said Augustin Augier, secretary general of ALIMA, which runs the treatment center in Nzerekore, in southeast Guinea. An outbreak of Ebola has killed close to 10,000 people across West Africa over the last year. The number of new cases has plummeted but officials have said much work still needs to be done before the virus is snuffed out in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone, the three worst affected nations."

"At least eight confirmed Ebola cases were reported from the 19 Ebola Treatment Units (ETUs) across the country in the past three weeks, Deputy Information Minister Isaac Jackson has disclosed. Margibi and Montserrado counties are now the epicenters where the new cases are being recorded, the Liberia News Agency quotes Minister Jackson as saying. 'That shows a good sign that Liberia is on the verge of getting to zero cases,' Jackson said at the Ministry of Information daily Ebola press briefing at the ministry Monday."

"Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone reported 99 new confirmed Ebola cases in the week to Feb. 22, down from 128 the previous week, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday. Sierra Leone accounted for the bulk of the latest infections with 63, signalling a halt to a steep decline recorded from December through January, followed by Guinea with 35 and Liberia just a single case, the U.N. agency said in its weekly report. "Cases continue to arise from unknown chains of transmission," the WHO said. Sixteen of the new cases were identified in Guinea and Sierra Leone after post-mortem testing of people who died in the community "indicating that a significant number of individuals are still either unable or reluctant to seek treatment." In all, more than 23,500 cases have been reported in the three West African countries, with more than 9,500 deaths, since the world's worst outbreak began in December 2013."

"Efforts to beat Ebola in Sierra Leone have been dealt a setback after 31 new cases were recorded in one village. The community of 500 just outside the town of Makeni has now been put in lockdown by the army amid fears that more could be infected. The World Health Organisation said cases have been linked to one man who escaped a quarantine in Freetown to go home to his village to get treatment from a traditional faith healer. The quarantine area is a fishing community, yards from the hotel where many of humanitarian agencies have stayed. “On Sunday we had just five patients, it was really quiet,” said Bill Boyes, spokesman for the International Medical Corps (IMC) in Makeni. “Then all of a sudden the ambulances started arriving and we had 16 people and it hasn’t stopped since. I think we have about 50 patients with 31 confirmed Ebola cases,” he said. It is the busiest the 100-bed centre has been since it opened in December, with confirmed cases spilling out into an empty convalescent ward. Most of the patients are part of the fisherman’s extended family."

"The death toll from the current Ebola outbreak has reached 9,660. The number of those infected amounts to 23,825, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a statement on Friday, TASS reported. These cases were reported from Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. In line with statistics, the maximum number of Ebola-related deaths and cases has been registered in Liberia — 4,057 cumulative deaths and 9,265 cumulative cases. Liberia is followed by Sierra Leone (3,490 deaths and 11,370 cases) and Guinea (2,113 deaths and 3,190 cases). The number of Ebola deaths in these three countries rose by 71 and the number of cases rose by 131 since February 25."

"'The government has noticed with grave concern that the downward trend in confirmed Ebola cases experienced at the start of 2015 has recently been interrupted by clusters of new cases across the country' the President's office said in a statement. The government blamed most new infections on maritime activities, as most people travel to Freetown through sea from Port Loko in northern Sierra Leone, which has been an Ebola hotspot. Recently, an incident at the Aberdeen Community left 1,000 people quarantined after a fisherman, who travelled to one of the coastal areas, returned to Freetown infected with Ebola and passed it to other members of the community. In response, the government decided to reinstate the lifted ban and announced several other measures to complement those already in force. 'Until the outbreak is contained, restrictions are hereby imposed as follows: no commercial vehicle should off-load wares in western area markets between 5:00 pm and 5:00 am; no boats should take off to sea or land anywhere throughout the country between 6:00 pm and 7:00 am,' President Korom said. He added that the country's naval forces would patrol the coast to ensure compliance, adding that coastal communities would be engaged to ensure that there is community ownership in combating the Ebola disease. The President said that the government was reverting to previous regulations on public transport."

"Sierra Leone's Vice President Samuel Sam-Sumana said on Saturday that he had placed himself in a 21-day quarantine after one of his bodyguards died of Ebola amid a worrying recent surge in new infections in the West African nation. Cases of Ebola, which has killed nearly 10,000 people in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea during a year-long epidemic, have fallen off sharply in recent weeks. Of 99 new confirmed Ebola cases in the region during the week to Feb. 22, however, 63 were in Sierra Leone according to the World Health Organization's weekly report. Sam-Sumana's bodyguard John Koroma died early this week. 'I have decided to be put under quarantine because I do not want to take chances and I want to lead by example,' the vice president told Reuters. 'I am very well and showing no signs of illness.' Sam-Sumana said his entire staff will also be placed under observation and anyone showing symptoms of the disease would be tested. The vice president is the country's first senior government figure to subject himself to a voluntary quarantine."

"Acting Information Minister Isaac Jackson has disclosed that for the past seven days Liberia has not reported a single confirmed case of Ebola. Quoting statistics emanating from the Incidence Management System (IMS), Jackson revealed that there are 116 Ebola contacts, 98 of which are in Montserrado and 18 in Margibi counties, while all of the 19 ETUs in the country only have two confirmed Ebola patients. He made the disclosure at the Ministry of Information daily Ebola press conference held at the ministry in Monrovia on Friday."

"Liberia’s Health Ministry has instituted measures at all its border points to prevent a resurgence of the deadly Ebola virus in those areas. According to the Deputy Ebola Incident Manager for Operations at the Ministry of Health, Thomas Nagbe, the measures taken at the Sierra Leone, Guinea and Ivory Coast borders with Liberia include the placement of thermometers and buckets with chlorinated water for the washing of hands at every border point."

"The Head of Liberia’s Ebola Incident Management System, Assistant Health Minister Tolbert Nyenswah, has said that Liberia will on Thursday discharge its last Ebola patient from the Chinese Ebola Treatment Unit (ETU) in the Paynesville suburb of Monrovia. 'There will be a discharge ceremony of the lone live confirmed Ebola case…' Nyenswah told reporters at the Information Ministry daily Ebola Press Conference in Monrovia on Wednesday. According to Nyenswah, the discharge of the lone case would indicate that the country is gradually moving towards its countdown that could possibly signify the end of the crisis, if citizens resist complacency. Quoting statistics from the IMS, he, however, noted that there are 102 Ebola contacts across the country, with nearly all of the ETU nearing emptiness. 'Thirteen of the 15 counties have completed more than two of their incubation periods without a single trace of any new case, which means, that most political sub-divisions of the county, except Montserrado and Margibi Counties, have gone 28 days or more without a confirmed case,' he said."

"Guinea and Sierra Leone reported 132 new confirmed cases of Ebola in the week to March 1, an increase of 34 over the previous week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday. Liberia did not report any new confirmed infections in the week for the first time since May last year, but disease surveillance may not be optimal given the low number of samples, the U.N. agency said in its latest update on West Africa's epidemic. The WHO pointed to signs that communities were still resisting bringing infected family members to treatment centers. Only half of the 51 new infections in Guinea came from registered contacts of Ebola patients and some cases are only identified after post-mortem testing, it said. The deadly virus is still widespread in Sierra Leone, which recorded 81 new cases, including 26 in the capital Freetown. "The number of confirmed Ebola virus disease deaths occurring in the community in Guinea and Sierra Leone remains high, suggesting that the need for early isolation and treatment is not yet understood, accepted or acted upon," the WHO said in a statement. "Unsafe burials continue to occur, with 16 reports of unsafe burials in both Guinea and Sierra Leone, respectively," it said. In all, more than 23,900 confirmed and suspected cases of Ebola have been reported since the outbreak began in December 2013, including some 9,800 deaths, it said. Nearly 500 health workers have been among the fatalities."

"Based on promising data from initial clinical trials in late 2014, WHO with the Health Ministry of Guinea, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), Epicentre and The Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH), will launch a Phase III trial in Guinea on 7 March to test the VSV-EBOV vaccine for efficacy and effectiveness to prevent Ebola. The vaccine was developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. A second vaccine will be tested in a sequential study, as supply becomes available."

"Vaccination will take place in areas of Basse Guinée, the region that currently has the highest number of cases in the country. The trial strategy adopted will be 'ring vaccination', based on the approach used to eradicate smallpox in the 1970s. This involves the identification of a newly diagnosed Ebola case – the 'index case' – and the tracing of all his/her contacts. The contacts are vaccinated if they give their consent."

"WHO commends the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on its diligence in containing the transmission of Ebola virus disease (EVD). According to WHO guidelines, the United Kingdom is now free of Ebola virus disease. On 28 December 2014, a health-care worker returned to Glasgow in the United Kingdom after volunteering at an Ebola treatment centre in Sierra Leone. The health-care worker, who had displayed no symptoms of EVD during the journey, developed a fever and myalgia on 29 December and was placed in strict isolation at the specialist Brownlee Unit for Infectious Diseases on the Gartnavel Hospital campus. On the afternoon of 29 December 2014, laboratory testing using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) confirmed that the health-care worker had EVD. WHO was notified of the case."

"On 7 March 2015, 42 days had passed since the health-care worker had tested negative for the second time using RT-PCR testing. The United Kingdom is therefore now declared free of EVD on the basis of the WHO guidelines. WHO commends the United Kingdom and Morocco for the measures put in place to identify and trace all potential contacts and to prevent further transmission of the Ebola virus. These measures included the exhaustive tracing of fellow air passengers and the implementation of all necessary preventive and control measures."

"No new case of the deadly Ebola virus has been registered in Liberia since February 19, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, also hailing positive signs in Sierra Leone and Guinea, AFP reported. Liberia, long the hardest-hit country in the Ebola epidemic that has killed nearly 10,000 people in west Africa, 'has now gone well over two weeks without a new reported case,' said Bruce Aylward, who heads WHO's Ebola response."

"Britain said on Wednesday a military healthcare worker had tested positive for Ebola while working in Sierra Leone and airport officials there said the patient would be flown home overnight. 'An investigation into how the military worker was exposed to the virus is currently underway and tracing of individuals in recent contact with the diagnosed worker is being undertaken,' Public Health England said in a statement. Airport officials said that a plane was due in at around midnight local time (0000 GMT) to transport the patient back to the United Kingdom. Former coloniser Britain has sent nearly 800 soldiers to help organise a campaign to control the epidemic in Sierra Leone and to build treatment centres. In addition, hundreds of national health workers have volunteered to assist there. Two Britons who contracted the virus have already been successfully treated at the Royal Free hospital in London, the country's designated centre, and other healthcare workers have also been treated there."

"Sierra Leone's national Ebola response chief says complacent behavior has led to a worrying spike in confirmed Ebola cases over the past week in four districts.
Alfred Palo Conteh, CEO of the National Ebola Response Centre, said Thursday that new measures must now be put into place to contain the surges.
Sierra Leone's Ministry of Health and Sanitation reported 15 cases Wednesday, along with 16 on Monday and Tuesday respectively.
Palo Conteh said that new Ebola hotspots have emerged in recent days in Cabala Town and Magazine Cut in the east of the capital, Freetown, where a number of confirmed cases have been recorded. The other hotspot is in the west of Freetown."

"The current worldwide outbreak of the Ebola virus has now killed 10,000 people, according to the World Health Organization. In October 2014, WHO said it was likely the virus would reach that number. The virus has primarily spread in West Africa throughout the past year. The most affected countries right now include Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where efforts are under way to "reach, monitor, and respond to the needs of all people touched by Ebola," according to WHO director-general Dr. Margaret Chan. "Today, more WHO employees are working at the community level on Ebola in West Africa than at any other point in the epidemic," says a media announcement on the WHO website. "Over 700 people are currently deployed in the Ebola affected countries." Ebola vaccine efficacy trials are ongoing, WHO said. In Phase III of a trial for a vaccine created in Canada, officials will give vaccines in the area of Basse Guinée, "the region that currently has the highest number of cases in the country," according to WHO."

"At least 10 American aid workers who may have come into contact with the Ebola virus in Sierra Leone were preparing on March 14 to be evacuated to the United States, according to a United States Embassy spokeswoman in the Sierra Leonean capital, Freetown. They will be the largest number of Americans returned home over fears of exposure to the virus since an outbreak in three West African countries was declared last year."

"A seventh UK healthcare worker has been flown back to the UK after suspected contact with Ebola. The individual worked in the same facility in Sierra Leone as a US volunteer medic who recently caught the virus. The UK patient currently has no symptoms. They have been assessed and discharged from the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle, but will be kept under close observation, officials say."

"Guinea has suffered a setback in its fight against Ebola with a rash of new cases, including three doctors infected by the virus, with officials blaming weak surveillance and a failure to follow safety procedures. The outbreak, which began in eastern Guinea more than a year ago and has killed over 10,000 people in the three West African countries worst hit, had appeared to be on the wane, but Guinea has seen cases rise for three consecutive weeks, according to World Health Organization data."

"A government health report from the weekend showed there were 21 new cases in a single day, a spike from the recent daily average of eight. One big source of concern is a chain of new infections that can be linked back to a woman who died of Ebola and was not buried safely, according to Fatoumata Lejeune-Kaba, spokeswoman for the U.N.'s Ebola emergency response mission UNMEER."

"The number of confirmed, probable, and suspected cases of Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is closing in 25,000 cases, according to an updated World Health Organization (WHO) report today.The death toll from the largest Ebola outbreak in history now stands at 10,179. A total of 150 new confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease (EVD) were reported in the week to 15 March, compared with 116 the previous week."

"There were 95 new confirmed cases reported in Guinea: the highest weekly total for the country in 2015. Sierra Leone reported 55 new confirmed cases over the same period: the country’s lowest weekly total since late June 2014. Liberia reported no new confirmed cases for the third consecutive week."

"Sierra Leone is planning another three-day, countrywide shutdown later this month to ferret out Ebola cases, remind people how to protect themselves from the disease and control its transmission. The West Africa Ebola outbreak that has killed more than 10,000 people is declining but the disease has remained stubbornly entrenched in parts of Guinea and Sierra Leone."

"In the drive to zero cases in Sierra Leone, the government will again ask residents to stay in their homes for three days, Alfred Palo Conteh, head of the country's National Ebola Response Center, said Wednesday. The shutdown is expected to take place March 27 through 29, according to Patrick Fatoma, another official with the Ebola response center. The government has done this before, and some experts said it was unexpectedly effective in providing information about to control the disease. Sierra Leone is "hoping it will be the last push to end Ebola outbreak.""

"A patient has tested positive for Ebola in Liberia's capital, officials said Friday, deflating hopes that the West African nation had beaten the disease after weeks with no new cases. Liberia has seen the most deaths in the West African Ebola outbreak, which has killed more than 10,000 people. But since it discharged its last case on March 5, it was counting down to being declared Ebola-free. Countries must wait 42 days from when the last patient tests negative before an outbreak is declared over. Now, a new patient has tested positive, Dr. Francis Kateh, the acting head of the country's Ebola Incident Management Team, said Friday. A second test is generally done to confirm the diagnosis. Tolbert Nyenswah, who runs Liberia's Ebola response, also said he had been told the test result was positive. He said the patient has been transferred to an Ebola treatment center in Monrovia."

"Sierra Leone's President Ernest Koromo ordered the country's entire population on Saturday to keep to their homes on March 27-29 in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola epidemic. "All Sierra Leoneans must stay at home for three days," he announced, expanding a previous order from the authorities for a lockdown in the capital Freetown and northern areas of the country."

"A Liberian official of the Ebola Incident Management System (IMS) said on Monday the lady who was confirmed positive with the Ebola virus is in a stable condition as she is being given enormous attention by health workers. The Deputy Incident Manager, Francis Kateh, cited Liberia’s current surveillance system as well as the Rapid Isolation and Treating Ebola (RITE) strategy, as factors responsible for quick identification of the recent Ebola case. Speaking at the regular Ministry of Information Ebola press conference in Monrovia Monday, Kateh said it remains the hope of every Liberian the patient to speedily recover."

"The Guinean Government has on Wednesday (25 March) initiated the very first efficacy trial of an Ebola vaccine this week in Basse-Guinée, one of the country's virus hotspots. Along with the World Health Organization (WHO), the authorities are rolling out ring vaccination tests of VSV-EBOV, an Ebola vaccine developed by the Public Health Agency of Canada. The ring vaccination strategy works by identifying recently infected patients and vaccinating all their contacts thereby creating a 'ring of immunity' around them to stop the virus from spreading. This will include only adults, who are most at risk of infection, with the exception of pregnant women. 'This very same strategy was a key contribution to eradicating smallpox in the 1970's, and allows us to vaccinate all those at greatest risk,' explained WHO Coordinator for the Guinea Vaccine Trial, Ana Maria Henao Restrepo. 10,000 volunteers vaccinated According to the government, the trial 'has received an excellent response from the community' in a small village in the Coyah prefecture, where the trial team arrived on 23 March."

"Liberian authorities on Wednesday reported two new Ebola infections, bringing the total number of new infections in the West African country to three and putting its goal of being declared Ebola-free further out of reach. Sompson Sieh, the country's deputy Ebola incident manager, said one of the two cases involved an 18-year-old girl who was taking care of her 44-year-old mother who recently tested positive for the virus. The mother used to sell food at a local community school before being taken to hospital on Friday after showing signs of the virus and later testing positive. Liberian health workers are currently monitoring more than 80 people from the infected woman's community."

"The second new case, Sieh said, was that of a young man whose girlfriend is said to be involved in cross-border trade from the New Kru Town community. "We are still questioning the young man and trying to convince him to tell us who he has come into contact with," Sieh told the Anadolu Agency. "He lives in the New Kru Town area, but was seen in the Clara Town area vomiting blood – that was how he was collected and taken to the Ebola treatment unit," the official said."

"Sierra Leone's government has delayed re-opening the country's schools to 14 April. The authorities had initially announced schools, which have been closed for eight months to contain the Ebola epidemic, would be re-opened on 30 March, but the spread of the disease began to gather pace in the country after a fall in new cases in February."

"The head of the government warned last week that the rate of transmissions may increase during the upcoming rainy season.The Minister of Education, Minkailu Bah, said the authorities are hoping to roll out a series of measures to enable an easy return in all schools – public and private – which have been closed since late July 2014 when the country declared the state of emergency. These measures are designed "to ensure that our schools are safe and disinfected so that our children can go to school", Bah is quoted as saying on Wednesday (25 March) by AFP. However, "children in areas quarantined [on 14 April] will not go to school, and schools in these areas will remain closed," he said."

"The three nations hardest hit by West Africa's Ebola epidemic recorded the lowest weekly total of new cases so far this year in the week leading up to March 22, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday.
The figures are a further indication that the outbreak, which has killed more than 10,300 people across Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is waning. But there are still worrying signs that the disease is not yet under control in Guinea, the U.N. health agency said in its weekly report."

"Around six million people in Sierra Leone have been told to stay indoors for the next three days as the government there tries to stop the spread of Ebola. There is a two-hour exemption on Friday to allow Muslim prayers and a five-hour window for Christians on Sunday. Dozens of new cases are still being reported every week, though Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea have all set a target of having no new cases by the middle of next month. Tulip Mazumdar reports."

"Liberia has announced the death of a 44-year-old woman who had recently tested positive for Ebola, delivering a blow to the country's hopes of being declared Ebola-free. The death was announced by the head of Liberia's Ebola Incident Management System, Tolbert Nyenswah, on state media. 'In spite of the professional and medical efforts and attention given to the woman by local and internal health workers,' Nyenswah said, 'the country still lost her.' 'We regret the lady's death and say to the family to find solace in the Lord,' the official asserted. He added that investigators would look into how the woman contracted the virus, with more than 200 people now being monitored by a contact tracing team. Nyenswah called on Liberians to continue observing Ebola-related safety measures.' Ebola is still here; let us keep washing our hands, stop shaking hands and hugging.Ebola is deadly,' Nyenswah said. Two other suspected cases tested negative for the virus, but more tests will be done in coming days, he said. One suspected case involves the daughter of the victim, while the other is a young man believed to hail from the Newkru Town community."

"Guinea has deployed security forces to the country's southwest in response to reports that Sierra Leoneans are crossing the border to flee an Ebola lockdown intended to stamp out the deadly disease, an official said Saturday. The deployment, led by the head of the national gendarmerie, was sent late Friday night to the town of Forecariah, said gendarmerie spokesman Mamadou Alpha Barry, adding that the area is 'secure.' Residents reported tension in the region resulting from a large influx of Sierra Leoneans in the days leading up to the lockdown, which went into effect on Friday and ends Sunday."

"Police fired tear gas at an angry crowd fighting over food supplies in Sierra Leone on Saturday, while other residents defied a three-day national lockdown that the government hopes will accelerate the end of the Ebola epidemic. Sierra Leone has reported nearly 12,000 cases and more than 3,000 deaths since the worst Ebola epidemic in history was detected in neighboring Guinea a year ago. New cases have fallen sharply since a peak of more than 500 a week in December but the government says the lockdown, its second, is necessary to identify the last cases and to buck a worrying trend towards complacency. Officials have ordered the six million residents to stay indoors on pain of arrest as hundreds of health officials go door-to-door looking for hidden patients and educating residents about the hemorrhagic fever. Residents in and around Freetown, one of the last Ebola hotspots, were told to stock up on food and water but on the second day of the campaign some said they had already run out. Officials are distributing supplies only in very poor areas."

"Guinean President Alpha Conde on Saturday declared a 45-day 'health emergency' in five regions in the west and south-west of the Ebola-hit nation in a bid to stem the spread of the deadly disease. The focus of the virus 'has shifted to our country’s coastal areas', the President said in a statement published in national media. 'That is why I am declaring a reinforced health emergency for a period of 45 days in the prefectures of Forecariah, Coyah, Dubreka, Boffa and Kindia,' he said."

"Guinea closed its border with Sierra Leone on Monday as part of new efforts to stamp out Ebola, an official said.
The current Ebola outbreak in West Africa has killed more than 10,300 people, mostly in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Liberia currently has no Ebola patients, and Sierra Leone has seen a fairly steady decline in cases in recent weeks. But the disease remains stubbornly entrenched in Guinea more than a year after the outbreak started and authorities are now ramping up efforts to eliminate the disease."

"Sierra Leone, however, was keeping its side of the border open, according to government spokesman Theo Nicol. He confirmed that the Guinean side was closed, although he said Sierra Leone had not been formally informed."

"A three-day lockdown in Sierra Leone has exposed hundreds of potential new cases of Ebola, aiding efforts to bring to an end an epidemic that has already killed 3,000 people in the country. Officials ordered the country's 6 million residents to stay indoors or face arrest during the period that ended late on Sunday as hundreds of health officials went door-to-door looking for hidden patients and educating residents about the virus."

"Reports to authorities of sick people increased by 191 percent in Western Area, which includes the capital, during the lockdown compared with the previous weekend, said Obi Sesay of the National Ebola Response Center. "Tests are being carried out on their blood samples, and the results will be in by Wednesday," Sesay said, adding that 173 of the patients in Freetown met an initial case definition for Ebola. In the rest of the country, there was a 50 percent increase in sick people reported in the lockdown's first two days, Sesay said."

"The Head of the Incident Management System (IMS), the command center responsible to oversee Liberia’s Ebola response, has clarified that contrary to several reports on social media, including Facebook and other sources, Liberia has no other confirmed Ebola case apart from a lady who tested positive for the virus but died last weekend."

"Guinea has detected at least three new cases of Ebola in the alumina hub of Fria, according to the national coordination of the fight against the disease, as authorities blamed popular resistance for hampering the battle against the virus."

"Authorities also indicated that 12 Ebola contacts had slipped away from the Conakry suburb of Matoto for the eastern town of Siguiri near the Malian border, Mamou in the center of Guinea and Boke in the west."

"As of Tuesday, the outbreak, which has persisted for more than a year, has infected 25,178 people and killed 10,445, according to new numbers released by the World Health Organization (WHO). Overall, the region has seen a drop in the number of confirmed cases and the number of patients filling Ebola treatment centers. However, medical groups have warned against complacency and Guinea has seen a recent uptick in infections."

"Alfred Palo Conteh, head of the country's Ebola response, said today that hundreds of sick people were identified during the door-to-door operation which was also aimed at reminding people how to prevent Ebola.
However, only 10 people eventually tested positive for the disease."

"The West African nation, Sierra Leone and Liberia both seem to have overcome their fierce clash with the deadly virus as near its end. But in Guinea, where Ebola hasn’t wreaked that much havoc, compared to the other 2 nations, is where the Ebola epidemic has not abated but remains stubbornly entrenched. Since the death of Liberia’s last Ebola last March 27, it is now counting down the 42 days waiting period to be declared Ebola free. While, Sierra Leone has no record of new infections since Wednesday for the second time. A nationwide lockdown indicated there wasn’t any hidden cases of the disease lurking there. Ernest Bai Koroma, Sierra Leone’s president, broadcasted via radio on Thursday, 'The battle to get to zero cases are truly on.' Although, it is significantly difficult to detect a trend in Guinea. The WHO called the picture mixed after noting signs of improvement last week. 10 new beds were added by Doctors Without Borders, to its treatment center in the capital, Conakry, last week to treat more patients. About half of the Donka center’s 50 beds were full as of Tuesday night, according to Raphael Delhalle, the field coordinator of the group there. Delhalle said, the outbreak in Guinea has followed this undulating trend for months and will likely continue."

" Sierra Leone's eastern district of Kailahun, once a hotbed of Ebola, has recorded its first case in nearly four months, threatening progress made to stamp out the disease, officials said on Saturday.
A 9-month-old boy tested positive for Ebola after dying in Kailahun, the district on Guinea's border that recorded Sierra Leone's first Ebola case last May and was for months the epicentre of the crisis."

"Sierra Leone said on Tuesday that it had mistakenly reported an Ebola positive case in Kailahun, a former hotspot for the virus which has not seen a case for nearly four months. A nine-month-old baby was pronounced Ebola positive last week but was later found to have died from other causes, according to National Ebola Response Centre spokesman Sidi Yahya Tunis. He blamed the mistake on a 'lapse' by health officials who took the blood sample from the corpse. Kailahun, which borders Guinea, was the first district in Sierra Leone to report a case of the haemorrhagic fever last May and at its peak recorded around 80 cases a week."

"Kailahun district council chairman Alex Bonapha said the false test result had resulted in deaths at a local clinic where medical staff were quarantined as a precaution, 'leaving the patients without care'."

Hotspots for 06 April, 2015: Western Area Urban (2 new cases) and Kambia (1 new case).

MoH reported case count: 12149 cases, 3838 deaths.

"Investigation carried out by both the laboratory and epidemiological teams have come to the conclusion that the reported case from Kailahun on the 3/4/15 [April 3] was not a case. Kailahun therefore continues to register zero cases"

"Despite efforts by the government to stem the spread of the deadly Ebola viral disease in the country, the virus is proving to be hard to defeat as new cases continue to emerge in the Western Area and northern Sierra Leone.
Kroo Bay, a sprawling slum community on the Atlantic coastline in the Western Area, is reported to have recorded another confirmed case."

"The Chief Executive Officer for the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC), Retired Major Paolo Conteh has informed the press that Kono and Tonkolili Districts have gone for over forty-two consecutive days without registering new Ebola positive cases. According to him, a total of seven districts in the country have clocked 42 days without recording positive cases, adding that Moyamba and Koinadugu Districts have also completed their first 21 days. He however added that the transmission of the disease is currently predominant within the Western Area Urban and Kambia District in the North. He informed journalists about the new policy which will witness the scaling down of emergency response workers across the country."

"The World Health Organization says the year-long Ebola outbreak in West Africa still qualifies as an international emergency even though the number of cases has plummeted. Last August, the U.N. health agency declared the epidemic of the lethal virus to be a global emergency after the deaths of nearly 1,000 people, mostly in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. At the peak last year, hundreds of new cases were being reported every week. In an update this week, WHO reported there were 30 confirmed cases last week in Guinea and Sierra Leone; the last case in Liberia died on March 27. Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is leading WHO’s Ebola response, said the decline appeared to be real, rather than just 'a pothole on the bumpy road to get to zero cases.'"

"'We are still not controlling the epidemic,' said Brice de le Vingne, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, who noted past lulls in the outbreak have often been followed by surges in cases. He said the designation of Ebola as a global emergency is also necessary to speed up paperwork for the ongoing experimental drug and vaccine trials in West Africa. Other experts agreed it’s too early for WHO to downgrade the status of the biggest-ever Ebola outbreak and warned the recent fall in cases may be deceptive. 'It is just that we are used to (seeing) large numbers of cases and deaths,' said Oyewale Tomori, a Nigerian virologist who sits on WHO’s Ebola emergency committee. 'These numbers should still frighten us.' Tomori said that though cases have fallen dramatically, it is too soon to relax. 'The three countries had declared themselves (Ebola-free) at one time, only to find dead bodies all over the place later,' he wrote in an email."

"West Africa's Ebola epidemic still poses a threat to other countries, but the risk of it spreading internationally appears to be diminishing, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday. The U.N. agency declared in August 2014 that the world's worst Ebola outbreak -- which began in December 2013 -- represented a 'public health emergency of international concern' that forced all health officials to shore up defences. The WHO's Emergency Committee, comprising independent experts who held talks on Thursday, was 'absolutely firm' in maintaining that view, said Dr. Bruce Aylward, WHO Special Representative for the Ebola Response. 'They did note, however, that they believe the risk of international spread appeared to be reducing, this was a result of the work being done in the countries,' Aylward told a news briefing at WHO headquarters. He cited control measures and exit screening of travellers from Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone."

"Even though the UN predicts the light at the end of the tunnel for Liberia and Sierra Leone is very close, the Ebola outbreak is still very unpredictable in Guinea, and hard work for recovery is expected for all three nations. David Nabarro, the UN special emissary on Ebola, said the progress was encouraging, but the verdict of victory over the epidemic must wait a while longer. During this past year, West Africa has suffered a great deal, with the dangerous virus spreading and killing more than 10,000 people. In an interview for the Financial Times, he contradicted the public perception that says 'the worst has passed, it must be easier now' – instead, the period between now and stopping the epidemic completely is the most difficult. The fewer people get infected, the more complicated it gets to identify them. The last known infected patient from Liberia died on March 27, and no new cases have been reported since. However, the World Health Organization states that 42 days before a country is considered Ebola-free and the population is counting down unanimously until the nightmare is officially over."

"Sierra Leone's 1.8 million children began their gradual return to school on Tuesday, more than eight months after classes were shut to halt the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. Classrooms have been empty since the government announced a state of emergency in July last year in response to an outbreak which has killed around 10,500 people, almost all of them in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea. More than 3,800 of the deaths were in Sierra Leone alone, according to World Health Organization`s (WHO) figures. 'This marks a major step in the normalisation of life in Sierra Leone,' Roeland Monasch, Sierra Leone representative for UNICEF, the United Nations children`s fund, said in a statement. 'It is important that all children get into school including those who were out of school before the Ebola outbreak. Education for all is a key part of the recovery process for the country.' The reopening had been set for March 30 as the rate of new infections slowed but the date was pushed back to April 14 with a spurt in new cases, mostly around the capital Freetown and three other western districts. Only nine confirmed cases were reported in the seven days to April 5, the WHO said in its latest situation update, compared with 25 the previous week -- a fifth consecutive weekly decrease and the lowest weekly total in almost a year. UNICEF said it was working with the government to ensure children were safe by training 9,000 teachers on Ebola prevention, including hand-washing and regular temperature checks."

"Ebola progress held steady in Sierra Leone and Liberia last week, but the number of confirmed cases in Guinea increased, with the country's response indicators showing a mixed picture amid sparks of community resistance, the World Health Organization (WHO) said today in its weekly epidemiologic update."

"The outbreak region registered 37 confirmed cases last week, up from 30 reported the week before, the WHO said. Guinea's cases increased from 21 to 28, with Sierra Leone reporting 9 lab-confirmed cases, the same as the week before. Liberia hasn't reported any new cases since the middle of March."

"Meanwhile, the geographic scope of the outbreak shrank a bit last week, with 8 districts in Guinea and Sierra Leone reporting cases, down from 10 the week before. The hot spots are still located in western Guinea, especially Forecariah district near the border with Sierra Leone. The few cases in Sierra Leone are coming mainly from three western districts in an area that includes the capital city, Freetown."

"Guinean authorities have confirmed at least nine new cases of Ebola in the southwest region of Forecariah near the border with Sierra Leone, the area hardest hit by the year-old outbreak, a senior health official said on Thursday."

"Authorities launched a four day, door-to-door campaign in Forecariah on April 12 to improve community participation in reporting suspected cases and as part of an emergency 45-day drive to tackle Ebola in the west of the country.
Sakoba Keita, national coordinator for the fight against Ebola in the West African country, said authorities had also detected 10 suspicious deaths in the community but only one of these had been confirmed as Ebola.
Keita said 92 percent of households in Forecariah had been reached in the four day programme."

"The Head of the Incident Management System and Deputy Minister-designate of the Ministry of Health, Tolbert G. Nyenswah, announced yesterday that Liberia will be declared Ebola free in 25 days if no new cases are reported.
At the Ministry of Information regular press briefing yesterday in Monrovia, Minister Nyenswah explained that Liberia began a recount of the 42 day virus free period following the death of the last Ebola patient on March 27."

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revised its guidelines on Ebola transmission on Sunday night, urging survivors to abstain from all forms of sex or use condoms every time “until more information becomes available,” rather than three months as previously recommended. The World Health Organization and Liberia have issued similar recommendations in recent weeks. They were acting on evidence suggesting that a Liberian man who recovered from Ebola might have transmitted the virus to his female partner many months later."

"Police in Sierra Leone's capital Freetown are hunting seven people who fled a slum that was placed under quarantine when a member of their family died of Ebola, the government said Wednesday. Part of the densely-populated Moa Wharf township was sealed off after the youngster, who tested positive for the virus, died on Tuesday, the National Ebola Response Centre (NERC) told reporters."

"A group of seven people from the same household, including his mother, are believed to have gone into hiding in Goderich fishing community, around 30 kilometres (20 miles) west of Freetown, the NERC said. Meanwhile, another six people who had been in contact with the dead youth were transferred to a clinic for observation, NERC spokesman Sidi Tunis said."

"More than 26,000 people have been infected with Ebola since the outbreak began and more than 10,800 have died, the World Health Organization said Wednesday. The UN health body also warned that the decline in confirmed cases appeared to have stagnated, urging increased efforts to stop transmission of the deadly virus. In all, 26,079 people have contracted the disease over the past 16 months, and 10,823 of them have died, almost all of them in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone."

"As the Ebola epidemic retreats across west Africa, international health authorities are turning their attention to the little understood long-term effects of the often-deadly virus on the survivors. There is little research on patients cured of the tropical fever, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has acknowledged that many are experiencing crippling complications long after walking out of treatment units. Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO's new head in Africa, told AFP that Liberian survivors had been reporting a range of problems, including sight and hearing impairment. 'We need to be aware that (complications) may be occurring and pay attention when people are being treated in case there is something that can be done to help them,' she told AFP in the Liberian capital Monrovia."

"'We are seeing a lot of people with vision problems. Some complain of clouded vision, but for others the visual loss is progressive. I have seen two people who are now blind,' Margaret Nanyonga said. Nanyonga, who calls the problem 'post-Ebola syndrome', said visual problems had affected around half of Ebola survivors in Kenema, while others complained of joint, muscle and chest pain and extreme fatigue. 'We need to understand why these symptoms persist, whether they are caused by the disease or treatment, or perhaps the heavy disinfection,' Nanyonga said."